Kiss of the Spider Woman

Kiss of the Spider Woman

The Queer Classic Everyone Should Read

Summary

Valentin and Molina seemingly share little other than a cell in this queer classic ahead of its time.

'Dazzling... a triumph' Observer

Sometimes they talk all night long. In the still darkness of their Buenos Aires prison cell, Molina re-weaves the glittering and fragile stories of the film he loves, and the cynical Valentin listens. Valentin believes in the just cause that makes all suffering bearable; Molina believes in the magic of love that makes all else endurable.

Though they seemingly share little other than a cell, the two form a bond so intimate - and a relationship so profoundly affecting - that only the other could understand.

'A visionary work that breathed life into certain dimensions of human possibility long before society at large was prepared to imagine them.' Carolina de Robertis, Los Angeles Review of Books

About the author

Manuel Puig

Manuel Puig was born in 1932 in a small town in the Argentine pampas. He studied philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires, and in 1956 won a scholarship from the Italian Institute in Buenos Aires and chose to pursue studies in film direction at the Cinecitta in Rome. There he worked in films until 1962, when he began to write his first novel. Exiled from Argentina, he settled in New York City in 1963. Puig's novels - Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, Heartbreak Tango, The Buenos Aires Affair, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages - have been translated into fourteen languages and secured his international reputation. He died in July 1990.
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