Rachelle Atalla

Rachelle Atalla - The Salt Flats

Rachelle Atalla is a Scottish-Egyptian novelist, short story writer and screenwriter based in Glasgow. Her short stories have been published widely in literary anthologies and she is the recipient of a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. Her first short film screenplay Trifle was commissioned by the Scottish Film & Talent Network and she is developing her first feature length screenplay with BBC Film. The Pharmacist was her first novel and shortlisted for the Scottish Fiction Book of the Year: Thirsty Animals was her second, and The Salt Flats will be published in August 2024. Set deep within the Bolivian salt flats, The Salt Flats follows Martha and Finn as they try desperately to repair their marriage by joining a group of privileged tourists on a pilgrimage to The Salt Centre. United by a shared quest for spiritual enlightenment, the group embark on a journey guided by an elusive shaman, but when the final ceremony descends into a nightmare, Martha and Finn are met with an ultimatum. Forced to grapple with the moral implications of their trip they must ask themselves: are some wounds too deep to heal?