Rosas’ daughter, Manuelita, served as his first lady after her mother’s death in 1838 and didn’t marry until the age of 36, in 1852, after he was overthrown but escaped in disguise to a British warship. He and his daughter were granted asylum in England and he spent the rest of his life on a farm near Southampton, where he ripped out ‘two thousand enormous trees’ in an attempt to recreate the landscape of the pampas.
5
Revolution of the Park: Uprising in 1890 leading to a bloody confrontation between revolutionaries and armed government forces.
6
Tragic Week: Violent clashes in the second week of January 1919 between striking workers and a repressive police force backed up by paramilitary vigilantes who attacked unions, synagogues, leftist and anarchist groups leaving 700 people dead and 3,000 injured.
7
Plaza de Mayo: Buenos Aires’ main public square, overlooked by the Cathedral, National Bank and the Casa Rosada or Presidential Palace. In the 1950s supporters of Eva and Juan Perón, known as descamisados – shirtless ones – would gather here in huge crowds. In 1955 the military bombed the plaza, killing over 200, in an attempt to overthrow Perón; they succeeded in doing so in December of the same year.
Every Thursday the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo still march to protest the impunity of the military that was behind the disappearance of their loved ones during the most recent dictatorship (1976–1982).
Large protests in the Plaza de Mayo in December 2001 led to the resignation of Fernando de la Rúa, and several subsequent presidents.
8
Pedro Henríquez Ureña (1884–1946): Dominican writer and professor who moved to Argentina in 1924 and lived there till his death – on a train pulling out of Constitutión Station at midday – on the 11th of May, 1946. (See ‘The Dream of Pedro Henríquez Ureña’ by Jorge Luis Borges, 1972)
9
Di Tella Institute (Instituto Torcuato di Tella): Important Buenos Aires art gallery; hosted influential exhibitions in the 1960s of work by Luis Felipe Noé (1933–), Ernesto Deira (1928–86) and Jorge de la Vega (1930–71), collectively known as the Otra Figuration group.
10
Onganía, General Juan Carlos: Military dictator 1966-1969. Forbade a 1968 performance of Bach’s Magnificat at the Di Tella Institute by way of a decree against excessive noise.
11
Camino Negro: Formerly a notoriously dangerous, narrow, poorly lit highway through the poor southern suburbs, now in ruins.
12
Julio Jorge Nelson: Tango lyricist and host of radio programs devoted almost exclusively to Carlos Gardel. Since Gardel left no heirs and Nelson made so much money from the reflected glory he began to be referred to ironically as la Viuda de Gardel or Gardel’s Widow.
13
Adán Buenosayres: Experimental quest novel by Leopoldo Marechal, published in 1948.
14
José Hernández: Author of ‘Martín Fierro’, epic poem published in 1872 about a persecuted gaucho.
15
Matraca: wooden noisemaker especially popular during Carnival.
16
Pibe Cabeza: Nickname of Rogelio Gordillo (1910–1937) leader of heavily armed criminal gang. After topping the most wanted list, he died in a shoot-out with police in Mataderos on February 9th 1937.
17
Centenary celebrations: Celebrations of the revolution of 1810 when Spanish rule ended in Argentina.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR AND TRANSLATOR
Tomás Eloy Martínez was born in Argentina in 1934. During the military dictatorship, he lived in exile in Venezuela, where he wrote his first three books, all of which were republished in Argentina in 1983, in the first months of democracy. He is currently a professor and director of the Latin American Studies Program at Rutgers University. He was shortlisted for the 2005 International Man Booker Prize.
Anne McLean has translated Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs and other writings by authors including Carmen Martín Gaite, Ignacio Padilla, Orlando González Esteva, Javier Cercas and Julio Cortázar. She was awarded the Premio Valle Inclan for Literary Translation and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2004 for her translation of Javier Cercas’ Soldiers of Salamis.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Santa Evita
The Perón Novel
First published in Great Britain 2006
Originally published by Planeta Argentina, 2004
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © by Tomás Eloy Martínez 2004
English translation copyright © by Anne McLean 2006
The moral right of the author and translator has been asserted
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ePub ISBN 978 1 4088 5749 6
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