The Gods of Tango by Carolina De Robertis: book review

The Gods of Tango (2015) is set in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 1913 to 1936.

Seventeen-year-old Leda leaves Italy to travel to Buenos Aires in Argentina in 1913 to be with her new husband Dante Mateo. On her arrival, he is dead. She knows no-one and she has no money; she only has her grandfather’s violin. Should she stay or should she go? Her parents want her back home.

Her love of music and the sounds of the tango entice her to stay in Buenos Aires: ‘the city could kill her, or it could remake her.’ But women are forbidden to play the violin in public, so she cuts her hair and dresses like a young man, called Dante, to join a group of tango musicians.

This is her life as a man, as a person trying to survive in an unknown land, as she creates a new identity and a new life. How long could she keep her secret, and her life?

This novel is not only about Leda’s life; it is about the rise and popularism of the dance of the tango. The rhythm of the tango is the underlying tempo and structure of the novel, from simple roots to evocative performances.

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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