*Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Translation Prize* *Finalist for the National
Translation Award* *Longlisted for the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize*
“These days when an American president has decreed that ‘there are only two genders: male and
female’ . . . an undaunted lyrical voice from a southern corner of the hemisphere offers a
model of resistance.” — The New Yorker “Intoxicating . . . Sexy political and deeply humane
. . . We all owe Penguin Classics a round of shots for A Last Supper of Queer Apostles .” — The
Washington Post 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 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 crónicas
—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 crónicas 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.
