The Woman from Uruguay

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents The Woman from Uruguay by Pedro Mairal, read by David DeSantos.

From internationally bestselling Argentine author Pedro Mairal and Man Booker International-winning translator Jennifer Croft, the unforgettable story of two would-be lovers over the course of a single day.

'A searing tale of seduction and betrayal, both wryly comic and deeply serious' Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend

Lucas Pereyra, an unemployed writer in his forties, embarks on a day trip from Buenos Aires to Montevideo to pick up fifteen thousand dollars in cash. An advance due to him on his upcoming novel, the small fortune might mean the solution to his problems, most importantly the unbearable tension he has with his wife. While she spends her days at work and her nights out on the town—with a lover, perhaps, he doesn’t know for sure— Lucas is stuck at home all day staring at the blank page, caring for his son Maiko and fantasizing about the one thing that keeps him going: the Uruguayan woman he met at a conference several months back and who he is longing to see on his day trip to Montevideo.

The surprising, moving story of this incredibly impactful day in Lucas' life, The Woman from Uruguay is both a gripping narrative and tender, thought-provoking exploration of the nature of relationships. An international bestseller published in twelve countries, it is the masterpiece of one of Latin America's most beloved writers.

'At once a picaresque comedy and a penetrating study of a man on the verge of middle age' Colm Toibin

Critics Review

This story of lust and middle-aged angst resonates long after the novel has ended ... Intimate, irreverent, fast-paced and raw ... Reminiscent of Geoff Dyer in elegiac mode, or the angry, funny, rueful work of Luke Brown ... A deeply unconventional love letter
Sunday Times
The Woman from Uruguay is at once a picaresque comedy and a penetrating study of a man on the verge of middle age who is trying to deal with fatherhood, money, marriage and love. Lucas's vivid presence in this book is created by his rich way of observing the world. As he travels from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, over seventeen hours, a whole world comes into being, a complex sensibility gets dramatized
Colm Toibin
Beautifully written and translated, The Woman from Uruguay is a work of exquisite style, shrewd philosophical insight, and deftly controlled suspense. A searing tale of seduction and betrayal, both wryly comic and deeply serious.
Sigrid Nunez, author of THE FRIEND and WHAT ARE YOU GOING THROUGH
A tragi-comic novel, rich in humour and pathos, by one of Latin America's favourite authors
Saga
Pedro Mairal shows us the shape and texture of the midlife climacteric. It is a thoroughly compelling performance
Times Literary Supplement
A tender meditation on desire and the fragility of the human heart, translated elegantly by Man Booker International winner Jennifer Croft … [a] profound novel
Chicago Review of Books
A perfect novel. A triumph from beginning to end. The novel’s style, that carries the soft irony of a writer in command of his narrative voice, its extension, its verbal prowess, its impeccably paced rhythm and, of course, the theme: a marital crisis written from the perspective of an Argentine man in his mid forties who is facing an existential crisis.
El Pais (Spain)
[Pedro Mairal] displays his full talent in a wisely structured novel, outstanding in its narrative rhythm and in the twists and turns of the plot, where humor emerges at the same time a tragedy takes shape surrounding an enigma . . . A story about love and its imponderables.
Página 12 (Argentina)
Eminently readable ... Witty ... Mairal gives his character the gift of frankness, and in his uncomfortable admissions and meandering reflections, Lucas, too, comes to accept the limits of his agency and the ineluctable force of reality
Claie Messud, Harper's
I wasn’t able to put the book down.
María Dueñas
A perfect novel.
Edmundo Paz Soldan
A bittersweet meditation on love, desire and ageing ... A psychologically astute novella … Pitch-perfect
Guardian
Mairal shines a fresh light into the cave of being middle aged. Hidden inside a mountain of adult responsibilities, Mairal's narrator revolts in known ways, with infidelity and travel, and yet Mairel's acute insights and the lyrical precision of Jennifer Croft's translation, cast a new glow on the unexpected pleasures to be found in the middle of life. An absolute delight of a novel
Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew
The loss and recovery of desire, the ambition of everlasting adventures, the earthquake of becoming a father, the flight forward . . . all these things occur in a single day (. . .), interwoven in the brilliant prose of Pedro Mairal, one of the best Latin American writers of our time.
Leila Guerriero
The Woman from Uruguay is a gem; as perfectly formed as a tide-washed pebble, brimming with astute observations and insight into the foibles of masculinity. I loved it
Graeme Macrae Burnet

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