A Last Supper of Queer Apostles

Extravagantly stylish, searingly critical dispatches from the margins by a queer Latin American icon, in English for the first time 'He speaks brilliantly for a difference that refuses to disappear' Garth Greenwell 'Astonishing and tender and quite outrageous... What a powerful, mould-breaking voice' Tomasz Jedrowski "I speak from my difference" wrote Pedro Lemebel, the Chilean writer who became an icon of resistance and queer transgression across Latin America. His innovative essays-known as crónicas-combine memoir, reportage, history and fiction to bring visibility and dignity to the lives of sexual minorities, the poor and the powerless. In a baroque, freewheeling style that fused political urgency with playfulness, resistance with camp, Lemebel shone a light on lives and events that many wanted to suppress: the glitzy literary salon held above a torture chamber, the queer sex and community that bloomed in Santiago's hidden corners and the last days of trans sex workers dying of AIDS, each cast in the starring role of her own private tragedy. As Chile emerged from Pinochet's brutal dictatorship into a flawed democracy, Lemebel re-wrote the country's history from the margins, and today his subversive voice echoes around the world. ________ 'When everyone who has treated him like dirt is lost in the cesspit or in nothingness, Pedro Lemebel will still be a star' Roberto Bolaño 'Pedro Lemebel is alive! And I am in love' Keith Ridgway 'A truly astonishing body of work' Lauren John Joseph 'A truly sensational addition to our collective heritage' Neil Bartlett

Extravagantly stylish, searingly critical dispatches from the margins by a queer Latin American icon, in English for the first time 'He speaks brilliantly for a difference that refuses to disappear' Garth Greenwell 'Astonishing and tender and quite outrageous... What a powerful, mould-breaking voice' Tomasz Jedrowski "I speak from my difference" wrote Pedro Lemebel, the Chilean writer who became an icon of resistance and queer transgression across Latin America. His innovative essays-known as crónicas-combine memoir, reportage, history and fiction to bring visibility and dignity to the lives of sexual minorities, the poor and the powerless. In a baroque, freewheeling style that fused political urgency with playfulness, resistance with camp, Lemebel shone a light on lives and events that many wanted to suppress: the glitzy literary salon held above a torture chamber, the queer sex and community that bloomed in Santiago's hidden corners and the last days of trans sex workers dying of AIDS, each cast in the starring role of her own private tragedy. As Chile emerged from Pinochet's brutal dictatorship into a flawed democracy, Lemebel re-wrote the country's history from the margins, and today his subversive voice echoes around the world. ________ 'When everyone who has treated him like dirt is lost in the cesspit or in nothingness, Pedro Lemebel will still be a star' Roberto Bolaño 'Pedro Lemebel is alive! And I am in love' Keith Ridgway 'A truly astonishing body of work' Lauren John Joseph 'A truly sensational addition to our collective heritage' Neil Bartlett

A galvanizing look at life on the margins of society by a crowning figure of Latin America's queer counterculture who celebrated "melodrama, kitsch, extravagance, and vulgarity of all kinds" (Garth Greenwell) in playful, performative, linguistically inventive essays, now available in English for the first time A Penguin Classic "I speak from my difference," wrote Pedro Lemebel, an openly queer writer and artist living through Chile's AIDS epidemic and the collapse of the Pinochet dictatorship. In brilliantly innovative essays--known as cr?nicas --that combine memoir, reportage, fiction, history, and poetry, he brought visibility and dignity to sexual minorities, the poor, and the powerless. Touching on everything from Che Guevara to Elizabeth Taylor, from the aftermath of authoritarian rule to the daily lives of Chile's locas --a slur for trans women and effeminate gay men that he boldly reclaims--his writing infuses political urgency with playfulness, realism with absurdism, and resistance with camp, and his AIDS cr?nicas immortalize a generation of Chileans doubly "disappeared" by casting each loca, as she falls sick, in the starring role of her own private tragedy. This volume brings together the best of his work, introducing readers of English to the subversive genius of a literary activist and queer icon whose acrobatic explorations of the Santiago demimonde reverberate around the world. For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

A galvanizing look at life on the margins of society by a crowning figure of Latin America's queer counterculture who celebrated "melodrama, kitsch, extravagance, and vulgarity of all kinds" (Garth Greenwell) in playful, performative, linguistically inventive essays, now available in English for the first time A Penguin Classic "I speak from my difference," wrote Pedro Lemebel, an openly queer writer and artist living through Chile's AIDS epidemic and the collapse of the Pinochet dictatorship. In brilliantly innovative essays--known as cr?nicas --that combine memoir, reportage, fiction, history, and poetry, he brought visibility and dignity to sexual minorities, the poor, and the powerless. Touching on everything from Che Guevara to Elizabeth Taylor, from the aftermath of authoritarian rule to the daily lives of Chile's locas --a slur for trans women and effeminate gay men that he boldly reclaims--his writing infuses political urgency with playfulness, realism with absurdism, and resistance with camp, and his AIDS cr?nicas immortalize a generation of Chileans doubly "disappeared" by casting each loca, as she falls sick, in the starring role of her own private tragedy. This volume brings together the best of his work, introducing readers of English to the subversive genius of a literary activist and queer icon whose acrobatic explorations of the Santiago demimonde reverberate around the world. For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.