Biography
It is the negative image of an autobiographical novel: the story of what did not happen to me but could have . . . you could say I have the conflict in my blood.
Carlos Gamerro
Carlos Gamerro is one of the best-known and most highly-regarded contemporary Argentine writers. Born in Buenos Aires in 1962, he has published six works of fiction, including the novels The Islands (And Other Stories, 2012 UK and 2014 North American publication), An Open Secret (Pushkin Press) and The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón (And Other Stories, 2015). He adapted The Islands for a major theatrical production in 2011 and writes influential works of criticism. In addition, Gamerro, who was brought up bilingually in English and Spanish, has translated Shakespeare, Auden, and Harold Bloom.
More Info
- Read more about Gamerro’s ‘landmark novel’ The Islands and its prequel and ‘masterful work of comic fiction’ The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón.
- Gamerro’s novel, An Open Secret (Pushkin Press, 2011) has been described as ‘haunting and disturbing’ (The Independent) and ‘a literary thriller that has the makings of a classic’ (The Economist).
- Gamerro has also written for PEN Atlas about Hamlet and the Disappeared.
- Carlos Gamerro regularly visits the UK for readings. Sign up to our mailing list to find out more information.
Reviews
Stuart Evers
The Guardian
‘Exhilarating, inventive and consistently absorbing.’
Ben Bollig
The Guardian
‘Gamerro picks history’s what-the-fuck moments, which when found in fiction are so strange as to knock the reader momentarily out of the imaginary world.’
Lorna Scott Fox
Times Literary Supplement
‘The reader is dragged headlong by Barnett’s athletic translation … a highly addictive comic voice, its peaks of hectic farce underlaid by a delicate, deadpan absurdism.’
Anthony Cummins
The Observer
‘A weird and wonderful thriller … rife with surreal horror and rampant bad taste.’
Anne McElvoy
BBC Radio 3 Night Waves
'A genre-bending book’
Tom Bunstead
Independent on Sunday
‘A danger-laden, mind-bending and ultimately redemptive quest. […] There are more ideas here than most writers would fit in 10 novels.’
Matthew Crockatt
Huffington Post UK
‘I urge you to find and read a copy of this important novel.’
Soledad Quereilhac
La Nación
‘Some may feel that the armed militancy of the 1970s shouldn’t be the subject of knockabout comedy; others, that Eva Perón shouldn’t be a target for satire. But in its dissection of operative myths and its demystification, The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón proposes an effective literary language for the purpose.’
Silvina Friera
Página
‘The more we laugh at the tragicomic hero Ernesto Marroné, this child of rigorous capitalism turned Montonero revolutionary, the more we empathise with Gamerro, the father of this child who is convinced he can apply the sermons of self-help manuals to breathe new life into the Revolution.’
Ross McIndoe
The Skinny
‘The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón is a Salman Rushdie-style retelling of a nation’s history from the recollections of an oddball individual, as Carlos Gamerro delves back into a vital passage of Argentina’s past from the skewed perspective of a man fundamentally unsuited to his own time . . . The result is a comically charged and slyly satirical tale that strips away the high rhetoric of history and politics, and reveals the squabbling egos underneath.’