Description

The Argentine literary sensation that has taken the Spanish-speaking world by storm: a dark, surreal and beautiful novel about violence, exclusion and love

‘It’s a fragment of the future’ Edouard Louis

‘Ferocious and magical’ Torrey Peters, Guardian

‘It will break your heart’ Mariana Enriquez

Auntie Encarna’s is the queerest boarding house in the world.

For Camila, it is a refuge, and the travesti who gather there are like family. At night they head out to Sarmiento Park to earn money. They stand together in the cold, sharing stories and a hip flask of whiskey, waiting for a car to slow down.

Until, one freezing evening, Auntie Encarna hears crying in the bushes and wades in to investigate. When she finds an abandoned baby boy, she will hear no arguments: she is bringing him home to care for him. Life for Camila and the others will never be the same again.

With a cast of larger-than-life, unforgettable characters, The Queens of Sarmiento Park combines brutal, unflinching realism with flourishes of surrealism to tell a story about the clash of hope with prejudice and fear. Wildly imaginative, darkly funny and devastatingly sad, it is a queer fairy tale about sex work, gender identity and chosen family; an anguished howl of pain and rage; and an unruly hymn to love and care on the outskirts of society.

‘A beautiful novel, moving, disturbing, raw and honest’ Fernanda Melchor, author of Hurricane Season

‘Sosa Villada’s storytelling is guttural, tender, humorous and punk … an aesthetic that drips with the oral rhythms swept up from the dark streets of Cordoba into perfect streams of poetic prose’ Julian Delgado Lopera

‘Fun, tragic, political and full of marvel … It will break your heart and at the same time make you want to laugh and dance’ Mariana Enriquez

Publisher Review

A beautiful yet tragic story about sex work, gender identity and chosen family * Diva * In beautifully rendered language, this debut novel from Argentine actor and writer Sosa Villada challenges contemporary ideas of gender, sexuality and love with the magical touch of a fairy tale. * Wall Street Journal * A beautifully written and expertly translated work of autofiction ... Sosa Villada's tales of headless horsemen and women who turn into birds are a stunning meditation on gender, our bodies and the ties that bind * NPR * Every so often, a slim book absolutely clobbers you with its exuberance and beauty - for me, this was that book -- Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby An important book: fun, tragic, political and full of marvel ... It will break your heart and at the same time make you want to laugh and dance -- Mariana Enriquez Confronting, radical, hopeful, The Queens of Sarmiento Park does one of the most important things a book (or a life) can do. It looks at all the rubble and the dirt and asks: "Can we make anything beautiful from this?" -- Keiran Goddard, author of Hourglass An exquisite book full of poetry, warmth and magical, raw honesty. Gorgeously written stories of lives entwined and enmeshed in the toughest of spaces, stories which felt so bloody generous through the act of sharing. Simply beautiful. -- Juno Roche, author of A Working-Class Family Ages Badly A beautiful novel, moving, disturbing, raw and honest. In skilfully rendered language, charged with poetic energy, it takes us deep into the world of trans prostitution and explores the violent and tender bonds that unite the women who inhabit it -- Fernanda Melchor, author of Hurricane Season The Queens of Sarmiento Park blew Argentina's collective mind with its exquisite power, tenderness, and riotous imagination -- Carolina De Robertis, author of The President and the Frog and Cantoras From a life reminiscent of a Pedro Almodovar film, Camila Sosa Villada has drawn an incredible piece of literature * Vanity Fair (France) * A magical novel ... raw and full of love * eldiario.es (Spain) * A literary sensation * Rolling Stone (Argentina) * A deeply poetic work about a group of outcasts who try with all their might to protect themselves from violence and exclusion through sisterhood, solidarity and joie de vivre * Deutschlandfunk kultur (Germany) * This novel celebrates trans life with lyricism and wonder ... A gem to be savoured * Elle (France) * Camila Sosa Villada draws inspiration from her past in prostitution and the legend of an Argentine saint for The Queens of Sarmiento Park, a tribute to sex workers, suffused with magic * Le Monde (France) * A work of searing, confrontational beauty -- Juno Mac, co-author of Revolting Prostitutes