In a Soviet-backed school in Lima, Peru, Indigenous children learn to sing in Russian, do traditional Andean dances and study the theories of Marx and the rules of chess. It's here that young Atusparia learns to dream of revolution.But when the Berlin wall comes down and the school lapses into chaos, she falls into an adolescent haze of sex and drugs. Her journey back towards her socialist ideals will take her to the heart of a feminist, Indigenous insurgency on the shores of Lake Titicaca, where her tumultuous past and dreams for the future will explosively collide.Combining political farce with lyrical fantasy and social realism, Atusparia is a provocative and hilarious novel about revolutionary desire and failure from one of Latin America's most lauded contemporary writers.



Gabriela Wiener is a Peruvian writer and journalist. Her books include Undiscovered, a novel longlisted for the International Booker Prize; Sexographies, a collection of gonzo journalism about contemporary sex culture; and Nine Moons, an essay collection. Atusparia was awarded the prestigious Ciutat de Barcelona Award. She lives in Madrid.Julia Sanches translates literature from Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish into English. Born in Brazil, she currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island.



International Marxism, indigenous revolt, neoliberalism, ferocious extractivism, and, alas, the story of those who are always overlooked, all told in extraordinary prose - among the most extraordinary in Spanish today



Wiener, with a provocative, incendiary, and tender style, confronts us with the uncomfortable truths behind the desire to change the world



No other writer in the Spanish-speaking world is as fiercely independent and completely irreverent as Gabriela Wiener