My Tender Matador

'Er brauchte gar keine Poesie zu schreiben, um der größte Poet meiner Generation zu werden.' Roberto BolañoIm Frühjahr 86 stehen die Zeichen auf Sturm, Augusto Pinochets Macht bröckelt: Proteste, brennende Reifen in den Straßen Santiagos, Stromausfälle, Revolutionsaufrufe im Radio. Nur die weltvergessene Heldin dieser Geschichte, nicht mehr jung, nicht mehr Mann, hat bloß Augen für Carlos, den bildhübschen Studenten, der trotz ihrer Stoppeln im Gesicht, ihrer Armut, ihrer grellen Art immer näherkommt. Sie stürzt sich vollends in die Hoffnung, singt Liebeslieder, lacht und phantasiert, doch vergebens. Denn wer hat die Macht, wer bestimmt die Grenzen, zwischen oben und unten, zwischen Mann und Frau? Sie ganz sicher nicht. Und so bleibt ihr allein der Widerstand, auf der Zunge und im Herzen.In farbiger, kräftiger, brillanter Sprache erzählt Pedro Lemebel eine Geschichte von politischer Militanz und sexueller Dissidenz. Torero, ich hab Angst ist bedeutende queere Weltliteratur. Ein bissiges Werk der Befreiung von Repression und Unfreiheit.

*Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Translation Prize*<BR>*Finalist for the National Translation Award*<BR>*Honorable Mention for the Society of Authors TA (Translators Association) First Translation Prize*<BR>*Honorable Mention for the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize*<BR> <BR>“These days, when an American president has decreed that ‘there are only two genders: male and female’ . . . an undaunted, lyrical voice from a southern corner of the hemisphere offers a model of resistance.” —The New Yorker<BR> <BR>“Intoxicating . . . Sexy, political and deeply humane . . . We all owe Penguin Classics a round of shots for A Last Supper of Queer Apostles.” —The Washington Post<BR> <BR>A galvanizing look at life on the margins of society by a crowning figure of Latin America's queer counterculture who celebrated “melodrama, kitsch, extravagance, and vulgarity of all kinds” (Garth Greenwell) in playful, performative, linguistically inventive essays, now in English for the first time<BR> <BR>A Penguin Classic<BR><BR>“I speak from my difference,” wrote Pedro Lemebel, an openly queer writer and artist living through Chile’s AIDS epidemic and the collapse of the Pinochet dictatorship. In brilliantly innovative essays—known as crónicas—that combine memoir, reportage, fiction, history, and poetry, he brought visibility and dignity to sexual minorities, the poor, and the powerless. Touching on everything from Che Guevara to Elizabeth Taylor, from the aftermath of authoritarian rule to the daily lives of Chile’s locas—a slur for trans women and effeminate gay men that he boldly reclaims—his writing infuses political urgency with playfulness, realism with absurdism, and resistance with camp, and his AIDS crónicas immortalize a generation of Chileans doubly “disappeared” by casting each loca, as she falls sick, in the starring role of her own private tragedy. This volume brings together the best of his work, introducing readers of English to the subversive genius of a literary activist and queer icon whose acrobatic explorations of the Santiago demimonde reverberate around the world.<BR><BR>For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

La única novela de Pedro Lemebel y su libro más emblemático: una historia de amor marcada por la militancia política y sexualPrólogo de Alana S. Portero.Una historia de amor en el Santiago del 86, el año del atentado a Pinochet. Un muchacho del Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez que va a participar en la acción, vive una relación sentimental con un homosexual, que lo apoya, sin saber sabiéndolo, en sus planes políticos. Estos fracasan y el vínculo se frustra.El escenario es exactamente el del año que pudo ser decisivo pero no lo fue: las protestas, los neumáticos humeando en las calles de la capital, los apagones, los boleros, rancheras y baladas de la época; Pinochet lidiando en la intimidad con sus fantasmas y sus pesadillas, y con una Lucía encaprichada con los últimos modelos de Nina Ricci; y la Loca del Frente, protagonista y testigo, personaje entrañable, puente entre los sueños y la desdicha.Tengo miedo torero es el verso de una antigua canción española y la única novela escrita por Pedro Lemebel. Sus palabras sugieren, más allá de 'su densa teatralidad' y sus ecos melancólicos, la interioridad recóndita de un país que, según lo define el propio autor, 'sueña muy poco, sueña a crédito, no sueña lo imposible'.