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Published Jul 2015
384 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
February 1913: seventeen-year-old Leda, clutching a suitcase and her father's cherished violin, leaves her small Italian village for a new home (and husband) halfway across the world in Argentina. Upon her arrival in Buenos Aires, Leda is shocked to find that her bridegroom has been killed. Unable to fathom the idea of returning home, she remains in this unfamiliar city, living in a commune, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. She finally acts on a passion she has kept secret for years: mastering the violin. Leda is seduced by the music that underscores life in the city: tango, born from lower-class immigrant voices, now the illicit, scandalous dance of brothels and cabarets.
Leda knows, however, that she can never play in public as a woman, so she cuts off her hair, binds her breasts, and, as a young man, joins a troupe of musicians bent on bringing tango into the salons of high society. As time progresses, the lines between Leda and her disguise will begin to blur, and feelings that she has long kept suppressed will reveal themselves, jeopardizing not only her music career but her life itself.
With evocative scenery, prose suffused with the rhythms of the tango, and a deep, resonant core, De Robertis delivers her most accomplished novel yet.
"Starred Review. There is something inherently alluring about the tango… [The Gods of Tango] captures that allure in a rich feast of history and human drama... Leda/Dante's strength of character finds a perfect home in De Robertis' strong narrative." - Booklist
"Starred Review. This beautifully realized work is as evocative and textured as the tango itself. De Robertis deserves to share fans with the likes of Isabel Allende and Julia Alvarez, not just for creating similar settings but for masterly storytelling." - Library Journal
"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... Beautifully written." - Publishers Weekly
"A plea to embrace 'the bright jagged thing you really are,' and De Robertis captures the enormity of that struggle." - Kirkus
"A sensuous and beautiful book, in which one woman's consuming passion for tango challenges convention, and shapes her identity. The Buenos Aires of the early 1900s is a vivid, dangerous place, and Carolina De Robertis takes us on an epic journey into its heart, and into the lives of the immigrants responsible for the birth of tango." - Saskia Sarginson, author of Without You and The Other Me
This information about The Gods of Tango was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
A writer of Uruguayan origins, Carolina De Robertis is the author of the novels The President and the Frog; Cantoras, winner of a Stonewall Book Award and a Reading Women Award, a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and a Lambda Literary Award, and a New York Times Editors' Choice; The Gods of Tango, winner of a Stonewall Book Award; Perla; and the international bestseller The Invisible Mountain, which received Italy's Rhegium Julii Prize. Her books have been translated into seventeen languages and have received numerous other honors, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
De Robertis is also an award-winning translator of Latin American and Spanish literature, and editor of the anthology Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times. In 2017, the ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Carolina De Robertis's Website
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