Cantoras

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Set in Uruguay, this story begins in the year 1977, under a dictatorship that categorizes and enforces their anti-homosexual laws along with those laws opposing the civic- military through jail, and torture along with other human rights violations, as well as people who just “disappeared.” The story opens with the five women—Flaca (21), Romina (22, Jewish), Anita/La Venus (27), Paz (16), and Malena (25)—traveling to Cabo Polonio from Montevideo for the first time in 1977. This beach, relatively untouched by the Uruguayan regime, becomes the cantoras’ refuge for years to come. Cantoras is a stunning lullaby to revolution—and each woman in this novel sings it with a deep ferocity. Again and again, I was lifted, then gently set down again—either through tears, rage, or laughter. Days later, I am still inside this song of a story." —Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award–winning author It seemed, at times, that this was the only way the world would be remade as the heroes had dreamed: one woman holds another woman, and she in turn lifts the world." You know the question people like to ask: if you were only to read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be? I never had an answer; never, until today. I’d gladly read Cantoras a thousand times over; I’d hug this book to my heart forever if I could.

Sounds and Colours spoke to Carolina about Cantoras and her literary work. Set in Carolina’s native Uruguay, Cantoras tells the story of five lesbians through the dictatorship years of the 1970s and 80s, inspired by real women who set up a community in the coastal town of Cabo Polonio. When translating this book into Spanish, could you say a bit about your decision to leave some Spanish words untranslated in the English? Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Media Reviews

And when I look up to the sky at night and see the moon, be it “a meager slice” or not, it feels comforting to know that they, the cantoras, have shared the view of the same moon with me, as time and space collapse into one. Cantoras’ follows the story of five lesbian friends in Uruguay from the late 1970s for a period of over 35 years. These five women – “cantoras” (meaning singers but also the slang term for lesbians) – are united by a strong friendship starting in Montevideo (Uruguay’s capital) following to Cabo Polonio, an uninhabited cape located a few hours away. During that period the women will share love, heartbreak, sorrow, and small victories.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact. Cantoras es audaz y desacomplejada, un reto a la noción de normalidad y un tributo al poder del amor, la amistad, y la resistencia política. Es una fábula revolucionaria, ideal para este momento, escrita con sabiduría y amor”. —Dina Nayeri, The New York Times Book Review Paz] hadn’t known air could taste like this, so wide, so open. Her body a welcome. Skin awake. The world was more than she had known, even if only for this instant, even if only in this place. They adopt the term “cantoras” – translated as singers – and away from the blinding city lights of Montevideo, they discover how to laugh, flirt, dream, share secrets, and most of all, to sing. As one character says to another, “Well, thank goodness you make her sing What’s a life without music?” Mostly young and mainly single when they meet, they blossom and grow together and learn new ways to interweave with each other. Even at time when they don’t believe in the fundamental goodness of human souls, they believe in “the shimmering power they generated collectively by being awake and together in this room.”Cantoras is a wise, brilliantly compassionate, wide-ranging novel about women in Uruguay, and about the power and realities of love. Carolina De Robertis is a force: prepare to be astonished.” —R. O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries I noticed that the novel contains several conversations where characters discuss language itself, such as the meaning of words and phrases, for example discussing the meaning of the word ‘esposas’, or the use of the term ‘transfer of power’ to describe a coup. Is this commentary on language choices something you particularly wanted to include in Cantoras? They’d been forming a kind of family, woven from castoffs, like a quilt made from strops of leftover fabric no one wanted. They wanted each other. They had to stay woven. They would not fray. This book made me feel so deeply, so wholly, that it can’t not b

Winner of a Stonewall Book Award andthe Reading Women Awardand a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the Lambda Literary Prize They’d been forming a kind of family, woven from cast-offs, like a quilt made from strips of leftover fabric no one wanted. They wanted each other. They had to stay woven. They could not fray." The city, Montevideo, was not a place to be curious, but a place to shrink into yourself and mind your own business, to be careful, to jeep your curtains drawn, to keep your mouth shut with strangers because any one of them could report you to the government and then you could disappear, and you could see it in passersby on the street, the flattened gazes, the postures of fear so familiar that they’d become ordinary.’I admit that I had this lesbian historical fiction audiobook on my list to listen for a good while but I couldn’t find the right frame of mind to enjoy it. I knew it wasn’t an easy listening plus I’m not a fan of authors narrating a book as they normally aren’t professionally trained. I finally decided to give it a try and I’m really happy that I did.

You wrote Cantoras in English and then translated your own text into Spanish. How did you find the act of translating your own novel? I have also read, and really enjoyed your English translation of Laura Restrepo’s novel The Divine Boys, was anything easier or harder translating your own work compared to translating somebody else’s? As I said above, I was a bit wary about the author reading her own work as I’ve found that authors usually cannot achieve the same level of excellence compared to professional narrators. I have to admit that this is not the case, Ms. De Robertis nailed this narration. I’m sure she did some kind of voice coaching because all the five characters’ voices are distinctive and her performance of the ample range of emotions is as good as any narrator’s. It’s also an advantage that she can pronounce the Spanish terms as they should sound, and even though she never lived in Uruguay, she sounds like a native. A gripping, lush, and ultimately hopeful story of five queer women fighting for their lives under a dictatorship. It was the type of good that when I finished I thought: I am going to read everything [De Robertis] writes forever.”—Madeline Miller, PBS NewsHour Una novela lírica, profundamente sensorial sobre un grupo de cantoras renegadas que reclaman un refugio en la costa durante los peores años de la dictadura en Uruguay… Carolina de Robertis nos ha entregado una obra maestra sonora de la imaginación, un manual de supervivencia para todos”.–Cristina García The novel follows five queer women living in Uruguay in the 1970s, through the dictatorship, who find a sort of refuge in a small seaside hamlet where they can truly be themselves - cantoras, slang for sapphics at the time.These women—Flaca, Romina, Malena, Anita "La Venus", and Paz — dub themselves cantoras, or singers in Spanish, a coded word they use to define others like them, women who desire, and love, women. They meet by chance, tentatively trusting signals that they are safe with each other, and through Flaca they discover the secluded oceanside village of Cabo Polonia where they retreat from the oppression of the military dictatorship that flattens their city of Montevideo into a drab shadow. From the highly acclaimed, award-winning author of The Gods of Tango, a revolutionary new novel about five wildly different women who, in the midst of the Uruguayan dictatorship, find one another as lovers, friends, and ultimately, family. Regardless, as someone who doesn't read a lot of historical fiction, especially adult historical fiction, this was truly a wonderful read that I'm already looking forward to re-reading, and I can't wait to read more by De Robertis in the future!