My Tender Matador

(Paperback)

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A major rediscovered queer classic: the subversive, blazingly beautiful oddball romance between an ageing trans woman and a young revolutionary by a Latin American icon

It is spring 1986 and Santiago's streets are aflame with protests against the dictator Augusto Pinochet. From her lavishly decorated hovel, the Queen of the Corner embroiders linen for the wealthy, dreams of romance and listens to boleros to drown out the rioting and gunshots. When handsome young macho Carlos waltzes into her life, the ageing queer swiftly agrees to help with his clandestine activities. As a strange connection blooms, their fates careen towards that of the dictator himself.

Written in lushly imaginative prose that blends the sordid and the profound, the romantic and the militant, My Tender Matador is an transgressive queer classic of desire and revolution.

Reviews

'Its a crime that Lemebel is so little known in the English-speaking world. This is one of the great novels of the past half century' - Garth Greenwell

'A powerful novel-artful, astonishing, deeply moving' - Isabel Allende

'Lemebel doesnt have to write poetry to be the best poet of my generation... When everyone who has treated him like dirt is lost in the cesspit or in nothingness, Pedro Lemebel will be a star' - Roberto Bolano

'Astute, grimy, raucous and tender. Its a love story, a political memoir, a defiant act of speculative fiction. Much like the author, its sui generis' - Lauren John Joseph

Author Bio

Pedro Lemebel (1952-2015) is considered one of the most important queer writers of twentieth-century Latin America and was also an activist and a performance artist. Born in Santiago, Chile, he became a renowned voice of Latin American counterculture during the Pinochet dictatorship and its aftermath. He received Chile's Jos Donoso Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is best known for his crnicas, a selection of which was published by Pushkin as A Last Supper of Queer Apostles, and one novel, My Tender Matador, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages and was adapted in 2020 into a critically acclaimed film by Chilean director Rodrigo Seplveda.