This week, as part of a course I’m teaching, I re-read Manuel Puig’s El beso de la mujer araña (1976)1. If you haven’t read Manuel Puig yet you are missing out on a remarkable Argentine writer and you should hang your head in shame and remedy this madness as a matter of urgency. El beso de la mujer araña, which exists in translation into several languages2, is a good place to start. It’s not my favourite Puig (that’d be Boquitas pintadas) but it’s certainly a book you can’t put down3.
Puig is one of those rare writers who manage to produce books that are critically well-received but that also have lasting popular appeal4. He’s also a writer that is heavily influenced by the language of cinema, which was his first creative love: he studied film direction in Cinecittà in the 1950s, worked as an assistant director and film archivist later, and had lifelong fascination with film, even after settling for literature as his main medium. And nowhere in his oeuvre is this fascination more visible than in El beso de la mujer araña.