Cousins (Las primas)

Cousins (Las primas)

Novel
Tusquets Editores, 2022
216 pages

Published by

Spain World Tusquets Editores / USA Soft Skull / UK Faber & Faber / Germany DTV / Italy Sur / Brazil Fósforo / France Laffont / Portugal Alfaguara / Lithuania Baltos Lankos / Slovakia Ikar / Turkey Siren Yayincilik / Russia Exem y Eksmo / Sweden Prosak Förlag / Netherlands Podium / China Folio / Estonia SA Kultuurileht / Denmark Lindhardt / Israel Locus / Romania Pandora / Croatia Disput / Greece Carnívora

Available for other countries

Nueva Novela Prize 2007 held by Página 12
Award Otras voces, otros Ámbitos, 2010

With a foreword by Mariana Enríquez

A coming-of-age story set in a confusing atmosphere during the forties in the city of La Plata. It is the story of four women from an impoverished, dysfunctional family in La Plata, Argentina, who are forced to suffer through a series of ordeals, including illegal abortions, miscarriages, sexual abuse, disfigurement, and murder, narrated by a daughter whose success as a painter offers her a chance to achieve economic independence and help her family as best as she can.

Neighbourhood mythologies, family, female sexuality, vengeance, and social mobility through art are explored and scrutinized in the unmistakable voice of Yuna—who stares wildly at the world in which she is compelled to live—a voice unique in contemporary literature whose unconventional style can be candid, brutal, sharp, and utterly breathtaking.

Halfway between a delirious autobiography and the rather shameless exercise of intimate ethnography, Cousins is a unique novel of disconcerting originality, a piece of literature taken to the extreme. It corners the reader by calling into question all those things that books usually ignore or hide carefully, in silence.

A novel of extreme, sick, obsessive, abused women. To laugh out loud at provocations and unusual decisions. And at the same time: bodies to the limit, writing in spurts like blood… Mariana Enríquez

A novel written with sick genius. Enrique Vila-Matas, El País

Brave, unprecedented and memorable novel… El Periódico de Cataluña

There is no political correctness here, no submission to punctuation; there is flight, there is humor, there is a style. Carolina Esses, La Nación

Intriguing. (…) I haven’t read such a strange book in ages. NCRV Gids, Netherlands

Cruel and strange and colorful—Cousins will be an immediate favorite for fans of Fleur Jaeggy and Leonora Carrington. Catherine Lacey

Sordid and morbidly funny. Publishers Weekly

Brimming with life, humor, and a vital twist of darkness. Alexandra Kleeman

Extraordinary… Readers will find [Yuna’s] unique voice—brought to life by the inimitable, ageless Venturini—unforgettable. Elaine Elinson, Ms. Magazine

Monstrous but brilliant with hair-raising humor: to read Aurora Venturini is to be presented with a sometimes unnerving degree of originality. The narrator’s voice veers between raw intelligence and dumb ingenuity, and therein lies the genius of its style. Clarín

Fearless, shocking, and utterly engrossing. . . Through art, [Cousins] offers its characters the same startling freedom that Venturini offers herself. Lily Meyer, NPR

Breezy and brutal. . . The Times Literary Supplement

In turns cruel, crazed, and astoundingly lyrical, it’s a book readers of Fleur Jaeggy or Violette Leduc will love and be horrified by in equal measure. Kyle Francis Williams, Full Stop

At turns morbid and darkly funny, Venturini’s late masterpiece follows several women in La Plata, Argentina, in this story of misogyny, disability and art. The New York Times Book Review

A portrait of the artist as a young woman, by way of David Lynch. . . It’s a joy welcoming the outlandish Cousins to the stellar family of 21st-century Argentine authors available in English. Star Tribune

Venturini knows just how long she can afford to pursue a digression or a run-on sentence, how to bring in a sense of character expressively. . . On finishing, I had the sense that I’d just experienced something with the energy of a baroque classic. Financial Times

 A brutal, visceral, and vivid story told in an unforgettable voice. Kirkus Reviews

Cousins is a unique, extreme novel of disarming originality. Alan Pauls, author of A History of Money 

One has no choice but to succumb to Yuna Riglos’ corrosive charm. Camila Sosa Villada, author of Bad Girls