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Published Mar 2012
256 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A coming-of-age story, based on a recent shocking chapter of Argentine history, about a young woman who makes a devastating discovery about her origins with the help of an enigmatic houseguest.
Perla Correa grew up a privileged only child in Buenos Aires, with a cold, polished mother and a straitlaced naval officer father, whose profession she learned early on not to disclose in a country still reeling from the abuses perpetrated by the deposed military dictatorship. Perla understands that her parents were on the wrong side of the conflict, but her love for her papá is unconditional. But when Perla is startled by an uninvited visitor, she begins a journey that will force her to confront the unease she has suppressed all her life, and to make a wrenching decision about who she is, and who she will become.
"Starred Review. De Robertis's lyrical flights are grounded in the fulfillment of the most desperate wishes of disappeared parents and their children, culminating in a wrenching catharsis about rebirth and healing." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Lyrically combining into reality both the fantastic and the horrific, De Robertis weaves a beautiful and plain-faced tale about birth, rebirth, and the responsibility of inheritance from complex, startling history." - Booklist
"Starred Review. A translator, short fiction writer, and novelist... De Robertis skillfully weaves a lyrical voice around her characters that treats victims, perpetrators, and bystanders with the same care and honesty." - Library Journal
"An elegantly written and affecting meditation on life in the wake of atrocity." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about Perla 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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