The Tango Singer

£7.99

Tomas Eloy Martínez, author of The Peron Novel and Santa Evita, presents another novel drenched in Argentinean history and culture. The story follows Jorge Luis Borges, the celebrated writer, and that most famous of Argentine exports - the tango.

Bruno Cadogan, a young American writing a dissertation on Borges’ essays on the tango, stays in Buenos Aires during the inflation crises of 2001 to listen to master tango singer Julio Martel - who specialises in singing the early standards, never makes recordings, and appears only sporadically. Cadogan tries to find a pattern to Martel’s appearances, hoping to find the key to understanding the city’s dramatic past.

Anecdotes about Argentina’s past and present are crammed into the novel to create a tantalising and magical impression of the country’s capital.