Translations
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
Translated by Frances Riddle
The slums of Buenos Aires, the government, the mafia, the Virgin Mary, corrupt police, sex workers, thieves, drug dealers, and debauchery all combine in this sweeping novel deemed a ‘revelation for contemporary literature’ and ‘pure dynamite’ (Andrés Neuman, author of Traveller of the Century and Talking to Ourselves).
When the Virgin Mary appears to Cleopatra, she renounces sex work and takes charge of the shantytown she lives in, transforming it into a tiny utopia. Ambitious journalist Quity knows she’s found the story of the year when she hears about it, but her life is changed forever once she finds herself irrevocably seduced by the captivating subject of her article. Densely-packed, fast-paced prose, weaving slang and classical references, Slum Virgin refuses to whitewash the reality of the poor and downtrodden, and jumps deftly from tragedy to comedy in a way that has the reader laughing out loud.
Slum Virgin was shortlisted for the Silverio Cañada Memorial Prize at the Gijón Detective Week (Spain) and chosen as book of the year by Rolling Stone magazine (Argentina) in 2009.
Claudia Piñeiro
Translated by Frances Riddle
From the author of Elena Knows , finalist for the 2022 International Booker Prize
20 years after a shocking accident, Mary Lohan returns to the Buenos Aires suburb she escaped in a fugue of guilt and isolation. She is not the same—not her name or voice, not even the color of her eyes. The neighborhood looks different too, but she’s still the same woman and it’s still the same place, and as the past erupts into view, they slowly collide.
A Little Luck is the story about the debilitating weight of lies, the messy line between bravery and cowardice, and the tragedies, big and small, that can ripple out from a single decisive event. In a place she had determined to forget forever, both anticipated encounters and unanticipated revelations show her, and us, that sometimes life is neither fate nor chance: perhaps it’s nothing more than a little luck.
Carla Maliandi
Translated by Frances Riddle
Could we claim that The German Room invents a new genre? It would be an exaggeration, of course, but we can certainly say that this novel represents what we could call a non-coming of age tale. A female protagonist – a young woman- travels from Argentina to Germany trapped by emotional conflicts. When she arrives, she is constantly exposed to all kinds of adventures and incidents, some funny, others tragic. She never fully understands her situation. Instead of learning from her circumstances and moving on, she gropes around, perplexed by the reality around her, hesitating as to what to do next. It is this hesitation that turns into thrilling suspense, a book that we can’t put down. We want to know what happens next, and after that. Maliandi takes us by the hand until the end of a novel that becomes, quite simply, remarkable and unforgettable.
Claudia Piñeiro
Translated by Frances Riddle
Life after crime from the International Booker-shortlisted author of Elena Knows
Fifteen years after killing her husband’s lover, Inés is fresh out of prison and trying to put together a new life. Her old friend Manca is out now too, and they’ve started a business — FFF, or Females, Fumigation, and Flies — dedicated to pest control and private investigation, by women, for women. But Señora Bonar, one of their clients, wants Inés to do more than kill bugs – she wants her expertise, and her criminal past, to help her kill her husband’s lover, too. Crimes against women versus crimes by women; culpability, fallibility, and our responsibilities to each other — this is Piñeiro at her wry, earthy best, alive to all the ways we shape ourselves to be understandable, to be understood, by family and love and other hostile forces.
Andrea Jeftanovic
Translated by Frances Riddle
A powerful novel depicting the devastating psychological effects of war, political violence and domestic abuse. This is a story narrated from the point of view of a nine-year old girl, Tamara, who takes in the intricacies of the survival strategies of the world she inherits, marked by poverty, unspeakable trauma, trapped scenarios. Theatre of War takes us on a desolate journey into the reconstruction of memory – a universal question that here turns into a reflection on how giant historical events can affect the seemingly insignificant lives of nameless individuals. Tamara, protagonist and narrator, faces the ghosts of a very tangible past that includes her father’s war (an immigrant from former Yugoslavia), a very conflictive family life, suicides, lost landscapes, inherited trauma, absent siblings and a mother who, due to an undefined illness, has suffered from partial memory loss and cannot recognise her own daughter.
Andrea Jeftanovic's debut novel, is an exploration of the empty theatre of operations her memory provides for the domestic war she was part of as a child. The Chilean novelist approaches the ruins of memory to source from them the love needed to build her identity as an adult. An impressive, sensitive, harrowing, widely praised first novel from one of the most important female novelists of Latin America.
Claudia Piñeiro
Translated by Frances Riddle
Lia fled her home after a brutal crime decades ago, but family, and the truth, will never let you go. Thirty years ago, in an empty plot of a quiet neighbourhood, a teenage girl's body was found quartered and burned. The investigation ended with no arrests and her family – middle class, educated, Catholic – quietly disintegrated. Three decades later, the hidden truth comes to light thanks to the father's enduring love for the victim. That truth will reveal the raw realities lurking behind appearances, the cruelty of those who prioritize obedience and religious fanaticism, the complicity of the fearful and the indifferent, and the loneliness and desperation of those who seek to follow their own path, ignoring the dictates of their elders. Just as she did with Elena Knows and A Little Luck , Claudia Piñeiro delves into family ties, social prejudice, and the ideologies and institutions that affect our inner worlds to deliver a brave, moving novel that strikes at the heart of these private dramas.
Publishing May 2026
Claudia Piñeiro
Translated by Frances Riddle
WINNER OF LIBERATURPREIS 2010
From the ‘Hitchcock of the River Plate’ (Corriere della Sera) comes Piñeiro’s third novel, a unique tale that interveaves crime fiction with intimate tales of morality and search for individual freedom.
After Rita is found dead in the bell tower of the church she used to attend, the official investigation into the incident is quickly closed. Her sickly mother is the only person still determined to find the culprit. Chronicling a difficult journey across the suburbs of the city, an old debt and a revealing conversation, Elena Knows unravels the secrets of its characters and the hidden facets of authoritarianism and hypocrisy in our society.
(On Piñeiro’s debut novel, Thurday Night Widows) ‘An agile novel written in a language perfectly pitched for the subject matter, a ruthless dissection of a fast decaying society”. José Saramago