Claudia Piñeiro Argentina

©Susanne Schleyer/autorenarchiv.de

Claudia Piñeiro was born in the province of Buenos Aires in 1960. As an author and scriptwriter for television she has already won numerous national and international prizes for her literary, dramatic and journalistic work.

„Thursday Night Widows”, the film based on her bestseller of the same name Las viudas de los jueves was released in Buenos Aires in 2009 with a record of espectators. In the UK, the novel has been selected by Amazon to be included in its Rising Star promotion.

In Las viudas de los jueves, fifty kilometres outside the gates of Buenos Aires lives the small society of Altos de la Cascada. Behind locked doors, shielded from the crime, poverty and filth of the people on the streets, it is seemingly occupied with troubles such as the summer’s drought of the communal golf course. Behind this façade, however, lie conflicts that cross all borders of social class: Infidelity, alcoholism, infertility and abusive marriage. And finally, the economical consequences of 9/11 and Argentina’s crisis take their toll. Yet instead of rolling up their sleeves, three devoted family fathers from Cascada find an alternative solution in order to save their loved ones from lowering their accustomed standard of living, let alone their wives having to do the housework… The novel opens with the discovery of the three men’s corpses in the pool. Had not Romina – psychologically victimised by her adoptive mother for her dark skin – and her boyfriend Juani witnessed the event, no one would ever have known what really happened. Claudia Piñeiro has invented this story before it took place in a similar way, and, in sparse and powerful prose, tells of a crime that generated a scandal in the Argentinean media.

Jury members of the Premio Clarín on Las viudas de los jueves:

(…), an unrelenting analysis of a social microcosm in an accelerating process of decadence.

José Saramago

A razor-sharp psychological and social portrait not only of Argentina, but of the affluent Western world as a whole.

Rosa Montero

An attention-grabbing story with cinematic rhythm, (...) and the vigour of a punch in the stomach.

Eduardo Belgrano Rawson

“So back then it must have been about a month or so since Ernesto had last made love to me” – so begins Tuya (“Yours”), and indeed, Inés finds a love letter among her husband’s papers, signed Tuya. When she follows him one night, she witnesses the accidental death of Ernesto’s secretary Alicia at his hands and thinks that everything will sort itself out in her favour. But she is mistaken: Alicia was her husband’s mistress in the past, his current lover is Charo. Liquidating Charo and framing her husband allows Inés to escape the plot he was hatching to blame her for Alicia’s death – and also allows her to take her revenge...

Piñeiro weaves a dense web of love affairs, betrayals and conspiracies. The whole story is told in a playful, entertaining manner, which gives the text a lightness of touch, even though she is telling us of human passions and their extreme consequences.

Claudia Pineiro is a real discovery: her debut novel Tuya (“Yours”) is an explosive, tightly-plotted romantic tragedy which gets straight to the point – the deepest darkest point – and highly entertaining. Further evidence that South America is a global player in current crime literature.

Deutsche Welle

This morning, Elena knows she has a hard day ahead of her. She must take the train from the suburb into central Buenos Aires, in spite of her Parkinson’s disease. She want’s to prove that her daughter Rita, who stayed with her even when she had her first boyfriend at the age of 40 and caring for the ill mother became hard work, did not commit suicide. Elena sabe (“Elena knows”), although nobody believes her. After all, she is the mother. And only one person still owes her a favour: Two decades before, Rita had saved a woman from abortion. In Buenos Aires, when Elena finally sits face to face with this woman, Isabel claims she owes her nothing. On the contrary. She was raped by her husband, beaten and humiliated. Her words put a harsh end to all of Elena’s certainty...

Claudia Piñeiro skilfully interweaves plot lines from the past and present and lets them conversely highlight each other. She succeeds in giving a wonderful portrayal of the relationship between mother and daughter, between dependence, hate and love, of an increasingly common illness nobody wants to talk about, of old age and the situtation of the caring relatives. Besides our arrogance is reflected, with which we judge so easily, simply on the grounds of a belief or prejudice, and without really knowing anything at all.

In her latest novel, Las grietas de Jara (“Jara’s Crack”), Claudia Piñeiro once again demonstrates her capacity to reveal the things hidden behind the facades of our existence; human relationships based on habit and cowardice, rather than love; on excessive ambition and personal gain, rather than morality. The author brings it all bubbling to the surface with her unbiased eye and a narrative voice that, like a detective novel, successfully engages the reader from start to finish.

For Pablo Simó, neither his marriage nor his career as an architect, have turned out quite as he had expected them to. Family life is dominated with arguments between him and his wife over their rebellious daughter, Francisca. At the office he designs houses that are all much the same and of no particular architectural interest. To top it all, he has never been asked by Borla, the director of the company and his supposed friend, to be a partner, even though his colleague has been.

Pablo’s life changes significantly with the unexpected appearance of Leonor. The girl brings to light a crime that happened years before, in which Pablo had played an important role – one which he thought he had managed to forget about. This turn of events gives him back his joie de vivre and opens him up to the possibilities of love again, as it becomes clear that he needs to change his life. The victim of the crime was an old man called Jara who had tried to claim compensation for cracks that were appearing in his flat, due to an adjacent construction that Borla was in charge of. The architect, however, refused to pay anything and instead opted to speed up the construction of his building instead. Jara catches on and tries to interfere personally in an attempt to slow it down. During a quarrel between Borla and Jara, Jara fell down a hole in the foundations. Pablo discovers that Leonor now lives illegally in Jara’s flat and he soon realises that everyone in this small human cosmos has a secret to hide. His gives his life a radical shake-up and leaves his wife, but maintains an affectionate relationship with his daughter. He leaves his job, but not before taking a small piece of revenge by following up on Jara’s case and his cracks, whilst also sorting out some business the girl had introduced to him.

Original editions and rights sold:

Novels:

Las viudas de los jueves, Buenos Aires: Alfaguara 2005, 318 p.

170.000 copies sold until now

Premio Clarín 2005

Film rights sold to Tornasol and Haddock Films, director: Marcelo Piñeyro, released in September 2009

Brazil: Editora Objetiva 2007 ● France: Actes Sud 2009 ● German: Unionsverlag 2010 ● Greece: Gema ● Israel: Keter ● Italy: Il Saggiatore 2008 ● Netherlands: Signatuur 2009 ● Portugal: Quidnovi 2008 ● Russia: Ast 2010 ● Serbia: Profil ● Turkey: Pegasus ● UK: Bitter Lemon Press 2009

Tuya, Buenos Aires: Colihue 2006, Alfaguara 2008, 160 p.

German: Unionsverlag 2008 ● Russia: Ast 2010

Elena sabe, Buenos Aires: Alfaguara 2007, 173 p.

France: Actes Sud ● German: Unionsverlag 2009 ● Greece: Gema ● Netherlands: Signatuur

Las grietas de Jara, Buenos Aires: Alfaguara

Film rights sold to Haddock Films

German: Unionsverlag ● Serbia: Profil

Theatre:

Cuánto vale una heladera, Buenos Aires: Ministerio de Educación, 2004

Un mismo árbol verde

Verona

Stories for children :

Un ladrón entre nosotros, Bogotá: Norma 2005, 92 p.

Serafín, el escritor y la bruja, Buenos Aires: Ed. Don Bosco, Barcelona: Edebé 2000, 95 p.