STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER

From the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of The Invisible Mountain and Perla—a lyrical, riveting story of a young woman whose passion for the early sounds of tango becomes a force of profound and unexpected change.

February 1913: seventeen-year-old Leda, carrying only a small trunk and her father’s cherished violin, leaves her Italian village for a new home, and a new husband, in Argentina. Arriving in Buenos Aires, she discovers that he has been killed, but she remains: living in a tenement, without friends or family, on the brink of destitution. Still, she is seduced by the music that underscores life in the city: tango, born from lower-class immigrant voices, now the illicit, scandalous dance of brothels and cabarets. Leda eventually acts on a long-held desire to master the violin, knowing that she can never play in public as a woman. She cuts off her hair, binds her breasts, and becomes “Dante,” a young man who joins a troupe of tango musicians bent on conquering the salons of high society. Now, gradually, the lines between Leda and Dante begin to blur, and erotic desires that she has kept suppressed reveal themselves, jeopardizing not only her musical career, but her life.

Richly evocative of place and time, its prose suffused with the rhythms of the tango, its narrative at once resonant and gripping, this is De Robertis’ most accomplished novel yet.

“Bold and mesmerizing…luminous.”
— The Los Angeles Review of Books

“De Robertis [is] a rising star in Latin American literature…[a] lavish, colourful, poignant novel…The tango music is almost audible, the sex scenes believably steamy…there’s a marvellous current of suspense that pulses through the book.”
—The Toronto Star

“Bold and mesmerizing…luminous…Woven of many strands, the novel is absorbing, tightly crafted, and ultimately quite moving.”
—The Los Angeles Review of Books

“Riveting….De Robertis weaves exquisite rhythms into this provocative novel.”
–BBC.com

“A rousing tale of sex, violence, exhilaration, poverty, luck, and redemption…De Robertis is as ambitious and audacious as her beguiling protagonist.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle

“Wonderful…beautifully written… the entire novel makes for a poetic read, with De Robertis penning effortlessly lyrical sentences. The novel is true to its time…engrossing and believable.”
—Publishers Weekly

“This beautifully realized work is as evocative and textured as the tango itself…a rich vision…De Robertis deserves to share fans with the likes of Isabel Allende and Julia Alvarez, not just for creating similar settings but for masterly storytelling.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

“Hypnotic…it’s a quick read, but an enraptured one: De Robertis’s passionate prose captures the rhythms of the tango, ensnaring us in its twists and twirls.”
—Seattle Times

“Atmospheric and fascinating, this novel about a woman who cross-dresses as a man to make it in dance-and-music obsessed 1920s Argentina couldn’t be more topical: a great story of passion and gender.”
—Omnivoracious (The Amazon Book Review) 

“There is something inherently alluring about the tango…De Robertis’ latest novel captures that allure in a rich feast of history and human drama.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“A plea to embrace ‘the bright jagged thing you really are,’ and De Robertis captures the enormity of that struggle.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“De Robertis…is at ease in the time period. She offers a take on the immigrant experience with both intriguing parallels to and differences from the more familiar stories of immigrants in New York.”
—Columbus Dispatch

“Sensuous, thoughtful, and beautifully rendered…De Robertis writes with considerable passion and beauty about the kind of love Dante finds and, of course, the kinds of sex she finds. This novel contains some of the loveliest and most riveting writing about sensuality that I’ve ever encountered.”
—Huffington Post

“A sensuous and beautiful book, in which one woman’s consuming passion for tango challenges convention, and shapes her identity. The Buenos Aires of the early 1900s is a vivid, dangerous place, and Carolina De Robertis takes us on an epic journey into its heart, and into the lives of the immigrants responsible for the birth of the tango.”
–Saskia Sarginson, author of Without You and The Other Me

“Cross-dressing Leda is an indelible character, and De Robertis does a fine job of conjuring the dangerous musical demimonde of early 20th-century Buenos Aires.”
—San Jose Mercury News

“Celebrated Latin American author Carolina De Robertis bestows an evocative and historically rich narrative in her newest work.”
—Muses & Visionaries Magazine

“Ambitious…De Robertis masterfully navigates the sensuous world of Buenos Aires’ rich musical heritage, and writes bravely and compassionately about Dante’s newfound passion – both as a musician and as a man.”
—Bustle.com

“You think you’re reading one novel, but, then, suddenly you realize you’re reading another. This is the dazzling transformation that suddenly comes upon you reading Carolina De Robertis’s rapturous novel…and then you stop and take a breath and ask yourself, ‘isn’t this what fiction is supposed to do?’ “
—Counterpunch

“Carolina De Robertis has done the joyous and affirming work of reclaiming history in her novel, The Gods of Tango.”
—Lambda Literary

“[The tango is] a sound charged with the attitude and yearnings of Argentina’s immigrant class, its raw passions and unleashed frustrations…De Robertis’s writing harnesses that physicality and sexual energy.”
–Wall Street Journal