Bruno Fólner’s Last Tango
AUTHOR
Mempo Giardinelli
TRANSLATOR
Rhonda Dahl Buchanan
Bruno Fólner’s Last Tango tells the story of transformation. That of a man who knows that death is stalking him, so he bets all he has on life, even at the cost of losing everything he created. With exquisite prose and absolute control over the psychology of a character who knows himself less than he believes, this novel narrates a journey of passion toward the unknown. It may end in tragedy or liberation, but the journey justifies the end.
Out of love and desperation, a man suddenly sees the possibility of changing his life completely and goes for it. It’s a daring move, and as with every bold venture, there’s a price to pay. In this case, a very high one that involves the death of all that he loves and the need to abandon his identity and reinvent himself. Bruno Fólner’s Last Tango tells the story of the transformation of a man who knows death is stalking him and so he bets all he has on life, even at the cost of losing everything. With an absolute control over the psychology of a character who knows himself less than he believes, and an exquisite prose, translated by Rhonda Dahl Buchanan, this new novel by the Argentine writer Mempo Giardinelli narrates a journey of passion toward the unknown. It may end in tragedy or liberation, but the journey justifies the end.
Reviews
"The most recent novel by the Argentine writer Mempo Giardinelli narrates the journey of a man in search of happiness. Giardinelli's novel is based on the fantasy of living another life, leaving everything behind and starting over. It shifts between the paradox of a man who feels guilty and one who found happiness by making a radical change in his life."
— Revista Diners Club
"The book ends without betraying its driving force. Parting from a restrained liberating despair, it remains faithful to an existentialist stoicism that unites transparency with passion."
— Diario La Nación, Buenos Aires
Rhonda Dahl Buchanan, Professor Emerita of Spanish at the University of Louisville, has translated fiction by authors from Latin America and Spain. She received an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2006 for the translation of the Mexican writer Alberto Ruy Sánchez’s novel Los jardines secretos de Mogador. Her translations of Ruy Sánchez’s novels The Secret Gardens of Mogador: Voices of the Earth and Poetics of Wonder: Passage to Mogador were published by White Pine Press. Her other published translations include works by the Argentine authors Mempo Giardinelli, Tununa Mercado, Ana María Shua, and Perla Suez, and the Spanish poet Fernando Operé.
Mempo Giardinelli is an award-winning author of novels, short stories, essays, and children’s fiction, and a journalist, and founder of La Fundación Mempo Giardinelli. He lived in exile, in Mexico (1976-1984), where his first works of fiction were published. Giardinelli has garnered many prestigious awards for his works of fiction and essays, among them the Premio Rómulo Gallegos (1993), which is the most important literary award in the Spanish-speaking world. His works have been translated to twenty-six languages and are the subject of critical articles, dissertations, and books published in Argentina and other South American countries, the United States, and Europe.