“Painted mouths” (Tango heartbreak), “The case of Buenos Aires”, “Kiss of the spider woman” (Kiss of the spider woman) General Villegas, 1932 – Cuernavaca, 1990) that S.The eix Barral publishing house has just reissued it to coincide with his 90th birthday.
Considered a ‘rara avis’ of Hispanic literature, Manuel Puig published his first novel, “La traición de Rita Hayworth” (1968), coinciding with the explosion of the Latin American literary boom, a movement in which he did not was never adapted, as noted by critic Miguel Lorenci in the newspaper Las Provincias.
Able to configure his own style, he was widely criticized for integrating into his novels several references to popular culture, as well as a strong presence of female characters or the LGTB community.
Seix Barral has now recovered nine of his novels, always bold and different, with a defiant modernity that put him one step ahead of his contemporary writers, as if he came from the future.
Listed in chronological order, the first of these is The Betrayal of Rita Hayworth (1968) (Betrayed by Rita Hayworth), a novel full of autobiographical nuances inspired by the suffocating provincialism of his childhood, which tells the story of a young man who feels different from others and whose only window to the world is a cinema screen.
Like the protagonist, Puig spent his childhood in his small hometown and then immigrated to Buenos Aires to complete his high school studies. After starting various higher studies, he chose to practice cinematography, for which he moved to Italy. He did not complete his training and ended up working as a writer. He lived in Rome, Paris, London, Stockholm, Mexico, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Cuernavaca. Puig assumed his homosexuality from a young age, although he did not believe that sexuality was something that defined a person’s identity.
“Denied by much of the Latin American boom and academic critics to consider that he trafficked in sentimentality and levity, Puig defined himself as a defender of individual freedom who was interested in “revealing the deceptions, simulations and concealments that deeply harm us, while at the same time building emotional bridges and creating emotional connections with strangers, combining the pleasure of entertainment with social denunciation,” writes Antonio Lozanos in the daily of Barcelona La. Vanguard.
Another star novel of his, republished by Seix Barral, is The Painted Pictures (1969), which mixes passion, crime and “family secrets to the rhythm of tango and bolero”.
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This title was followed by The Buenos Aires Affair (1973), with a prologue by writer Mario Mendoza. It is a detective novel with political and sentimental overtones that was not well received in Argentina, as it was censored and forced the author to go into exile.
Most of these novels have been translated into English.
- Kiss of the Spider Woman / Kiss of the Spider Woman
Prologue by Antonio Muñoz Molina
- Betrayed By Rita Hayworth / Betrayed By Rita Hayworth
Prologue by Bob Pop
- Angelic Pubis / Angelic Pubis
Prologue by Camila Sosa Villada
- Painted Mouths / Broken Tango
Prologue by María Dueñas
- The case of Buenos Aires / The case of Buenos Aires
Prologue by Mario Mendoza
- Cae la noche tropical / Tropical Night Falling
Foreword by Tamara Tenenbaum
- Blood of Reciprocated Love / Blood of Requited Love
Prologue by Paulina Flores
- Eternal curse on the reader of these pages / Eternal curse on the reader of these pages
Prologue by Claudia Piñeiro
