The Gods of Tango, Carolina De Robertis
The Gods of Tango, Carolina De Robertis
2 Rating(s)
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The Gods of Tango

Author: Carolina De Robertis

Narrator: Carolina De Robertis

Unabridged: 14 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/07/2015


Synopsis

From one of the leading lights of contemporary Latin American literature—a lush, lyrical, deeply moving story of a young woman whose passion for the early sounds of tango becomes a force of profound and unexpected change.February 1913: seventeen-year-old Leda, carrying only a small trunk and her father’s cherished violin, leaves her Italian village for a new home, and a new husband, in Argentina. Arriving in Buenos Aires, she discovers that he has been killed, but she remains: living in a tenement, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. Still, she 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 eventually acts on a long-held desire to master the violin, knowing that she can never play in public as a woman. She cuts off her hair, binds her breasts, and becomes “Dante,” a young man who joins a troupe of tango musicians bent on conquering the salons of high society. Now, gradually, the lines between Leda and Dante begin to blur, and feelings that she has long kept suppressed reveal themselves, jeopardizing not only her musical career, but her life.Richly evocative of place and time, its prose suffused with the rhythms of the tango, its narrative at once resonant and gripping, this is De Robertis’s most accomplished novel yet.

About Carolina De Robertis

Carolina De Robertis, a writer of Uruguayan origins, grew up in England, Switzerland, and California. She is the author of two previous novels, Perla and The Invisible Mountain (a Best Book of 2009 according to the San Francisco Chronicle; O, The Oprah Magazine; and Booklist), and the recipient of Italy’s Rhegium Julii Prize and a 2012 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her writings and literary translations have appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Granta, The Virginia Quarterly Review, the anthology Immigrant Voices, and elsewhere. Her novels have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Oakland, California.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nicole

4,25/5 Największe zaskoczenie tego roku!......more

After De Robertis’s other books, The Invisible Mountain and Perla, this was disappointing. The premise is interesting enough: a young Italian woman, Leda, arrives in Buenos Aires in 1913, when immigration is booming and the tango is on its way up from the brothels to become an international sensatio......more

Goodreads review by Olga

Roztańczone Buenos Aires początku XX wieku. Tango i jego tajemnice. Opowieść o miłości do muzyki, o namiętnościach, które ukrywają się w jej zakazanych dźwiękach. Autorka wrzuca czytelników w ciemne uliczki Buenos Aires początku wieku i tam też wrzuca swoją bohaterkę, która dla muzyki i dla wolności......more