We Are Green and Trembling

Deep in the wilds of the New World, Antonio de Erauso begins to write a letter to his aunt, the prioress of the Basque convent he escaped as a young girl. Since fleeing a dead-end life as a nun, he's become Antonio and undertaken monumental adventures: he has been a mule driver, shopkeeper, soldier, cabin boy, and conquistador; he has wielded his sword and slashed with his dagger. Now, caring for two Guaraní girls he rescued from enslavement, and hounded by the army he deserted, this protean protagonist contemplates one more metamorphosis, which just might save the new world from extinction…

Based on the life of Antonio de Erauso, a real figure of the Spanish conquest, We Are Green and Trembling is a queer baroque satire and a historical novel that blends elements of the picaresque with surreal storytelling. Its rich and wildly imaginative language forms a searing criticism of conquest and colonialism, religious tyranny, and the treatment of women and indigenous people. It is a masterful subversion of Latin American history with a trans character at its center, finding in the rainforest a magical, surreal space where transformation is not only possible but necessary.

"Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s writing is singular in the Spanish language: an intrepid pulse that shakes and disarms us in the face of the wordless power, both formidable and innocent, of the jungle and the creatures it portrays." -- Fernanda Melchor
"Cabezón Cámara’s entrancing poetry reminds us how magical and frankly unpleasant it is to live through history." -- The New York Times
"So sharp, so urgent, so brave. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara is one of the most authentic voices writing in Spanish today, and among her many talents is one that's especially hard to find: not only does she challenge and incite us, not only does she confront the darkness, but she also gives us in return the subversive courage to think of ourselves as more human, more alive, and more luminous than ever." -- Samanta Schweblin
"She writes with the astuteness of an experienced researcher and the vivid rhythms of a poet. The worlds of her books are revealed to us through a playful, erotic, festive sense of curiosity, one that always leads us to good harbor." -- Cristina Rivera Garza
"If there's any writer strong enough to start a revolution, it's Gabriela Cabezón Cámara. And I'll be right there beside her." -- Gabriela Wiener
"Sensuous and searing—Readers will be riveted by this queer anticolonial picaresque..." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The Argentine writer Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (b. 1968) has worked at varied jobs, from selling car insurance in the street to cultural journalism. She is the author of the novels Slum Virgin, Romance of the Blonde Brunette, and The Adventures of China Iron, which was shortlisted for the International Booker and Médicis prizes. She is an environmental activist and a co-founder of the feminist movement Niuna menos. Robin Myers is a Mexico City-based poet and translator. A 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, she has been longlisted twice for the National Translation Award in poetry and won the 2019 Poems in Translation Contest (Words Without Borders / Academy of American Poets). Her work has appeared in Granta, The Baffler, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.

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