The Gods of Tango
  • Published: 15 June 2016
  • ISBN: 9781101872857
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $36.00

The Gods of Tango

A novel

Formats & editions
EBook
7 Jul 2015
Paperback
15 Jun 2016
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A powerfully sensual, erotically charged story of music and romance, set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century Buenos Aires.

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2015

An NBC Latino Selection for Ten Great Latino Books Published in 2015

Arriving in Buenos Aires in 1913, with only a suitcase and her father’s cherished violin to her name, seventeen-year-old Leda is shocked to find that the husband she has travelled across an ocean to reach is dead. Unable to return home, alone, and on the brink of destitution, she finds herself seduced by the tango, the dance that underscores every aspect of life in her new city. Knowing that she can never play in public as a woman, Leda disguises herself as a young man to join a troupe of musicians. In the illicit, scandalous world of brothels and cabarets, the line between Leda and her disguise begins to blur, and forbidden longings that she has long kept suppressed are realized for the first time. Powerfully sensual, The Gods of Tango is an erotically charged story of music, passion, and the quest for an authentic life against the odds.
  • Published: 15 June 2016
  • ISBN: 9781101872857
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $36.00
Categories:

About the author

CAROLINA DE ROBERTIS

Carolina De Robertis was raised in England, Switzerland, and California by Uruguayan parents. Her fiction and literary translations have appeared in ColorLines, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and Zoetrope: All-Story, among others. She is the recipient of a 2008 Hedgebrook Residency for Women Authoring Change and the translator of the Chilean novella Bonsái by Alejandro Zambra. She lives in Oakland, California.

Praise for The Gods of Tango

  • "A rousing tale of sex, violence, exhilaration, poverty, luck, and redemption.... De Robertis is as ambitious and audacious as her beguiling protagonist." --San Francisco Chronicle
  • "[De Robertis] is a natural storyteller.... The book's relentlessly propulsive story of gender-switching in a perilous time ... keep us rapt, turning the pages." --The Washington Post
  • "[The tango is] a sound charged with the attitude and yearnings of Argentina's immigrant class, its raw passions and unleashed frustrations.... De Robertis's writing harnesses that physicality and sexual energy." --The Wall Street Journal
  • "Bold and mesmerizing.... Woven of many strands, the novel is absorbing, tightly crafted.... Passages hum in step with the tempos of the tango, seducing the reader to continue turning the pages." --Los Angeles Review of Books
  • "De Robertis masterfully navigates the sensuous world of Buenos Aires' rich musical heritage, and writes bravely and compassionately." --Bustle.com
  • "Confident, sensual, wildly romantic." --The Columbus Dispatch
  • "Hypnotic.... De Robertis' passionate prose captures the rhythms of the tango, ensnaring us in its twists and twirls." --The Seattle Times
  • "A rich feast of history and human drama." --Booklist (starred review)
  • "Sensuous, thoughtful, and beautifully rendered." --The Huffington Post
  • "[A] lavish, colourful, poignant novel.... [The] prose is full and lush.... There's a marvellous current of suspense that pulses through the book." --The Toronto Star
  • "Beautifully written.... Makes for a poetic read, with De Robertis penning effortlessly lyrical sentences. The novel is true to its time and manages to be engrossing and believable." --Publishers Weekly
  • "A plea to embrace 'the bright jagged thing you really are,' and De Robertis captures the enormity of that struggle." --Kirkus Reviews
  • "Dazzling.... [A] rapturous novel." --Counterpunch
  • "Joyous and affirming." --Lambda Literary

  • "A rousing tale of sex, violence, exhilaration, poverty, luck, and redemption.... De Robertis is as ambitious and audacious as her beguiling protagonist." --San Francisco Chronicle
  • "[De Robertis] is a natural storyteller.... The book's relentlessly propulsive story of gender-switching in a perilous time ... keep us rapt, turning the pages." --The Washington Post
  • "[The tango is] a sound charged with the attitude and yearnings of Argentina's immigrant class, its raw passions and unleashed frustrations.... De Robertis's writing harnesses that physicality and sexual energy." --The Wall Street Journal
  • "Bold and mesmerizing.... Woven of many strands, the novel is absorbing, tightly crafted.... Passages hum in step with the tempos of the tango, seducing the reader to continue turning the pages." --Los Angeles Review of Books
  • "De Robertis masterfully navigates the sensuous world of Buenos Aires' rich musical heritage, and writes bravely and compassionately." --Bustle.com
  • "Confident, sensual, wildly romantic." --The Columbus Dispatch
  • "Hypnotic.... De Robertis' passionate prose captures the rhythms of the tango, ensnaring us in its twists and twirls." --The Seattle Times
  • "A rich feast of history and human drama." --Booklist (starred review)
  • "Sensuous, thoughtful, and beautifully rendered." --The Huffington Post
  • "[A] lavish, colourful, poignant novel.... [The] prose is full and lush.... There's a marvellous current of suspense that pulses through the book." --The Toronto Star
  • "Beautifully written.... Makes for a poetic read, with De Robertis penning effortlessly lyrical sentences. The novel is true to its time and manages to be engrossing and believable." --Publishers Weekly
  • "A plea to embrace 'the bright jagged thing you really are,' and De Robertis captures the enormity of that struggle." --Kirkus Reviews
  • "Dazzling.... [A] rapturous novel." --Counterpunch
  • "Joyous and affirming." --Lambda Literary