Cousins

At the age of 85, Aurora Venturini stunned Argentine readers when her darkly funny and formally daring novel, Cousins, won Página/12's New Novel Award. She had already written more than thirty books-but it was only then, in 2007, that she was widely recognized as a radical voice in Spanish-language literature. Venturini never stopped writing in her 92 years and lived a life immersed in the literature and culture of the twentieth century: her first award was given to her in person by Jorge Luis Borges, she was friends and colleagues with Eva Peron; and when she lived in exile in Paris she socialized with a sparkling milieu of writers and philosophers, including Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Widely regarded as Venturini's masterpiece, Cousins is the story of four women from an impoverished, dysfunctional family in La Plata, Argentina, who are forced to suffer a series of ordeals including disfigurement, illegal abortions, miscarriages, sexual abuse 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 she can. Neighborhood mythologies, family, female sexuality, vengeance, and social mobility through art are explored and scrutinized in the unmistakable voice of an unforgettable protagonist, Yuna, who stares wildly at the world in which she is compelled to live; a voice unique in its candidness, sharp edge and utterly breathtaking power. Cousins is the jewel in Venturini's oeuvre-mischievous and stylish, vital and mysterious, and completely original.