Novel
Kiss of the Spider Woman
El beso de la mujer araña
Manuel Puig · 1976
Synopsis
A prison in Buenos Aires, from September to October 1975. Valentín Arregui, twenty-six, held for subversion, shares his cell with Molina, thirty-seven, convicted of corruption of a minor. To get through the nights, Molina tells him films: a story about a panther woman, a Nazi propaganda film, a story about the living dead. The book is made up of their dialogues with no narrator, of official documents and of notes on theories of homosexuality.
Context
Written in Mexico according to escritores.org, the novel appeared in Barcelona from Seix Barral in 1976 and remained banned in Argentina until 1983. Thomas Colchie translated it into English in 1979, Albert Bensoussan into French the same year. Héctor Babenco, a Brazilian filmmaker, made a film from it in 1985, and a musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb won a Tony Award in 1993..
Who it is for
A novel in Spanish almost entirely in dialogue; translated into French by Albert Bensoussan.
Prizes and reception
Ranked by El Mundo among the hundred best novels in Spanish of the century, and brought to the screen as well as the stage.