Heartbreak Tango (Argentinian Literature Series) [Paperback]

Manuel Puig (Author), Suzanne Jill Levine (Translator), Francisco Goldman (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Argentinian Literature Series | Publication Date: February 16, 2010

Finally available again after many years, one of the most compelling novels from Argentina’s great novelists.

Awash in small-town gossip, petty jealousy, and intrigues, Manuel Puig’s Heartbreak Tango is a comedic assault on the fault lines between the disappointments of the everyday world, and the impossible promises of commercials, pop songs, and movies. This melancholy and hilarious tango concerns the many women in orbit around Juan Carlos Etchepare, an impossibly beautiful Lothario wasting away ever-so-slowly from consumption, while those who loved and were spurned by him move on into workaday lives and unhappy marriages. Part elegy, part melodrama, and part dirty joke, this wicked and charming novel demonstrates Manuel Puig’s mastery of both the highest and lowest forms of life and culture.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Puig’s work is among the most original of the final years of the 20th century. (Mario Vargas Llosa)

A brilliant, forceful, melancholic arabesque of a novel, the tone reminiscent of Bertolucci’s freer moments. This is surely the most detailed and least sentimental elegy ever written. (Kirkus Reviews)

A brilliant Argentine novelist, indebted to Joyce and Faulkner, but endowed with formidably original comic talents. (Library Journal)

About the Author

Manuel Puig is the acclaimed author of many novels, including Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, Kiss of the Spider Woman, and The Buenos Aires Affair. He was born in Argentina in 1932 and died in Mexico in 1990.

Having translated Manuel Puig, Julio Cortázar, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and other notable authors, Suzanne Jill Levine is one of the most highly regarded translators of contemporary Latin American literature. She is a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the author of The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press; 1 edition (February 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156478553X
• ISBN-13: 978-1564785534
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A solid addition to any world fiction collection, April 14, 2010

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heartbreak Tango (Argentinian Literature Series) (Paperback)

Classy has nothing to do with any of life. "Heartbreak Tango" is a novel from Argentinean Author Manuel Puig, as he provides a vivid picture of life of in Argentina as his protagonist Juan Carlos Etchepare faces life, and grants a story looking to the highest highs of culture to the lowest of lows. Poignant and hilarious simultaneously, "Heartbreak Tango" is a solid addition to any world fiction collection.