Additional information
by Alicia Giménez Bartlett (Author), Andrea Rosenberg (Translator)
The Planeta Prize-winning novel from the author of the Petra Delicado series: "A highly literate noir, a powerful tale of lives spiraling out of control" (NB magazine).
Irene's husband has left her for a younger woman and her family business is on the verge of collapse, but the last thing she wants is to be the subject of gossip or pity. So she starts spending time with a divorcée who, in liberating herself from the bonds of marriage, has also freed herself from the clutches of the old crowd of "couple friends."Javier is a literature teacher who suddenly loses his job at a Catholic school. He's not ambitious--the months go by and no work materializes. Then, almost by accident, he gets back in contact with a cocky friend from his youth who introduces him to the world of stripping and male prostitution.
Circumstance brings Irene and Javier together: he gets some extra cash and mental stimulation out of their relationship, and she finds an outlet for her frustrations. However, Irene doesn't want to have sex with him--she just wants to see him naked, humiliated, dominated. Their relationship takes a troubling turn, but things may be even more complicated than they seem.
Alicia Giménez-Bartlett weaves a tale of economic and personal devastation, portraying the ways that life's disappointments can bring people to do things they never would have imagined. "Incendiary . . . This provocative dive into gender, power, and class uses diverse viewpoints to craft a powerful story and an unpredictable, memorable ending."--Publishers Weekly "A stark realist portrait of characters who are searching for their place in a world without redemption."--Culturamas
Author Biography
Alicia Giménez-Bartlett is one of Spain's most popular and beloved crime novelists. She was born in Almansa, Spain, in 1951 and has lived in Barcelona since 1975. After the enormous success of her first novels, she decided to leave her work as a teacher of Spanish literature to dedicate herself full-time to writing. In 1997, she was awarded the Femenino Lumen prize for the best female writer in Spain, and in 2015 she was awarded the prestigious Planeta Prize for her novel, Naked Men.
Andrea Rosenberg translates from Spanish and Portuguese. Her work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Quarterly Conversation, The Iowa Review, Words Without Borders, and other publications.
Andrea Rosenberg translates from Spanish and Portuguese. Among her published translations are Aura Xilonen's The Gringo Champion (Europa, 2017), Juan Gómez Bárcena's The Sky Over Lima (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), David Jiménez's Children of the Monsoon (Autumn Hill Books, 2014), and Lina Meruane's Viral Voyages: Tracing AIDS in Latin America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including Words Without Borders, Drunken Boat, the Buenos Aires Review, The Iowa Review, The Quarterly Conversation, and In Translation.
