Translation Rights TQE / The Woman on the Wall

Some know Alberto Laiseca as “the only damned of contemporary Argentinean literature.” Regardless, his work is already abundant, reason why, after Tusquets Argentina published La mujer en la muralla, his most mythical novel, most elaborated and most read, we thought it almost necessary to make it known around the world.

Unanimously celebrated since its first edition in 1990, La mujer en la muralla is a parable about Chi’n Hsih Hwang Ti –a fierce and brilliant emperor– and his colossal creation – the Great Wall of China. But it is also the multiform and fascinating adventure of the people who admired and suffered the tyrant. Throughout this book silently march Lai Chú, the cautious sage, the unfortunate learned men, the sect of idealised eunuchs, wives, concubines and prostitutes. At the very heart of the story we find the self-sacrificing Men Chiang Nü, who follows her learned husband –recruited to work in the inhuman construction of the Great Wall– to the confines of the empire. With the absurd as one of the most credible elements of reality, and through a documental rigor worthy of trust, Alberto Laiseca actualises a diverse and extraordinary world, animating it before the reader not only with quotidian details, but also with the most meditated and profound vision of the protagonists.

Alberto Laiseca was born in Rosario in 1941. He is author of the novels Su turno para morir (Your Turn to Die), 1976; Aventuras de un novelista atonal (The Adventures of an Atonal Novelist), 1982; La hija de Kheops (Kheop’s Daughter), El jardín de las máquinas parlantes (The Garden of the Speaking Machines), 1993; and the monumental saga Los Sorias (The Sorias), published by Simurg in 1998 and awarded the Boris Vian Prize. He also published a book of short stories called Matando enanos a garrotazos (Clubbing Midgets to Death), 1982, a collection of poetry titled Poemas chinos (Chinese Poems), 1987, and the essay Por favor, ¡plágieme! (Plagiarize me, Please!), published in 1991. Many of his short stories are included in both Argentinean and Spanish anthologies. Laiseca received the Guggenheim Grant in 1991.