In addition to Cinco inviernos , she is highly acclaimed for her 2020 novel La forastera , which won the Real Academia Española prize. Availability and Format

Merino arrived shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, witnessing the rise of "wild capitalism," the assault on the Russian parliament, the war in Chechnya, and the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

The text explores her "literary vocation" and the struggle to find her own voice. Her time in Russia eventually inspired her first novel, Cenizas rojas (1999).