Sky of Tango

My name is Light

L’ HUMANITÉ. PASCAL JOURDANA (FRANCE)
Sensing the other as a fellow being is also one of the contents of Tango, as well as the author’s willpower to remove history, search for the sources of the personality of an individual or even of a country. War of generations, class fight, ideological clash: Argentina is a banger… and tango is its fuse.

CLARÍN CULTURAL Ñ | MARIA JOSE EYRAS (ARGENTINA)
Without any reservations, compromised and honest when it comes to human feelings, tango reaches in this novel the highest level of passion and destiny celebrating its capacity of seductively fusing immigrants and natives to different cultures and musical influences. Elsa Osorio enlightens trough tango and fiction the genesis of the complex identity of the Argentinean

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG. FLORIAN BALKE (GERMANY)  
To Elsa Osorio, at the beginning there was no light but tango (...) The author makes it possible for multiple narrative voices of the dead and the living to show the flow of life of men and women, two families and a divided society that gets reunited with a dance. Osorio says that her subject is the regaining of the collective memory. Nevertheless, at the same time, freedom of fiction is so important to her that she has created, with a special pleasure, an “ideal orchestra” with the great musicians of the past. Osorio’s ideal orchestra plays such music that it’s as if we have heaven on earth.

ABC, DE LAS ARTES Y LAS LETRAS. ARTURO GARCÍA RAMOS (SPAIN)

Tango, renovation and scandal. Tango, social revolt and economic expansion (...) Those skies (the one by Borges, by Cortázar) are in this one, amplified and magnificent, by Elsa Osorio.

LEFIGARO MAGAZINE. STÉPHANNE HOFFMANN (FRANCE)
Never has the title of a novel best united its style and content. Ososrio’s novel is as sinuous and rhythmic as a tango. She combines with elegance cities, periods of time and characters, sliding from Buenos Aires to Paris, from one century to another.

CORRIERE DE LA SERA (ITALY)
A forbidden love with the background of a country and its contradictions, a novel really complemented by the critics (…) A tango step that becomes a symbol of identity.

LIBELLE (HOLLAND)
A magnificent family chronicle about love, tango and Argentina. 

VISAO J.L. (PORTUGAL)
...with passion and courage she goes through Argentine history during a good part of the XXth century (...)

LA REPUBBLICCA (ITALY)
A century of Argentine history pivots with the rhythm of a tango (…) A novel that Carlos Gardel could have sung. Thrilling.

MARIANNE CLARA DUPONT-MONOD
A balanced, subtle and risky book that dances as it speaks.

FREUNDIN (GERMANY)
A catching novel.

EL PAÍS REVISTA. MARUJA TORRES (SPAIN)
 “Cielo de Tango”, a dance of strong beautiful legs and crossed stories danced tightly with Time, a Buenos Aires epic, amilongada. A whole immersion in a world we love.

ENCRES VAGABONDES. ISABELLE ROCHE.
The author handles, with an outstanding brilliance, different time levels and narrative places, deepening even more the features of her story by introducing voices from the choir of the dead and from tango itself (…) These constant slides give the novel all its charm: we plunge into it like in a dance that once finished leaves those who give in so breathless and delighted. 

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR TANGO ARGENTINA. MICHAELA SCHABEL (GERMANY)
Elsa Osorio greatly depicts the passion of tango, for which she finds new images of impressive poetry. Ideal material for a film can be seen there.

IL MONDO (ITALY)
A majestic choral book that joins the personal fortune of the main characters with the transformations of Argentina within the long, restless and dramatic XXth century. Ghosts, memories, reality : everything leads to a tango. 

LA RAZÓN J.O. (SPAIN)
...a rattling narration that unites dance, love, struggles, longings, clashes and fights. A magnificent urban geography.

SOIR L.C. (BELGIUM)
The author leads her readers as in a dance, between Paris and Buenos Aires, between present and past. Like the dancer, the reader must follow the movements indicated, but it’s so pleasant to be led this way!

ESPACES LATINOS. CHRISTIAN ROINAT
Not only does E.O. narrate a family saga, she also plays very well with style and rhythm, reproducing in the written words the syncope of tango. She changes the time and the atmosphere, her narrator or, even more exceptional, her story’s recipient.

TV ARTE. ALEXANDRA MORADET (FRANCE)
An ode to the art of living and to Argentina, from the opulence of the beginning of the XXth century to the coup d’état in 1930, until the economic crisis of 2001, Osorio submerge us in a multiple facet Buenos Aires that lives to the rhythm of tango.

LAUSITZER RUNDSCHAU. IDA KRETZSCHMAR (GERMANY)
No book could best tan this one take vice to heaven.

WUZ  Daniela Pizzagalli (ITALY)
...Elsa Osorio’s luminous talent makes present and past talk with each other and gives life to stories that seem to be dictated by an affectionate collective memory.

CORREO GALEGO. MIGUEL SEOANE (GALICIA, SPAIN)
The numerous narrative voices (like a Greek chorus) enable a more complex vision, full of shades, of such an assorted and contradictory society as the Argentinean. 

IL MESSAGERO. RITA SALA (ITALY)
A way of telling Argentina: its half-breed structure, so Italian, Mediterranean, so European, its regimes and its redemptions, so Latin-American, its cult of exile, its dance.

MOSER BOOKSHOP. CORDULA HOFKO (GERMANY)
Elsa Osorio’s new book is a masterpiece not only because of its language but also for the excellent investigation on the subject. 

VERS L’AVENIR M.I. (BELGIUM)
A magnificent novel (...) A passionate literary immersion in two family stories which are complex and spiced with slumbers, since the elderly, who dared live their passion for tango, comment with humor from a sort of Paradise called Tango.

DIE LITERARISCHE WELT. ALBRECHT BUSCHMANN (GERMANY)
It is not the equilibrium of waltz; it is not the high-speed of rock’n roll, but an amazing change of rhythm, abrupt pauses, fast turnings. This novel doesn’t speak about tango, but with tango and through tango. As Ana says after the first page, sorry, after the first tango: “What a pleasure!”

ITALIA OGGI. ALESSANDRA RICCIARDI
A exciting and light reading that tries to join together tango’s sensuality and the reconstruction of more than a century of Argentine history, from de first working class struggles to peronism, from the sinister times of dictatorship to the bankruptcy that subjected the country. It has to be red.

JEUX D’ÉPREUVES, FRANCE CULTURE. ALEXIS LIEBAERT (FRANCE)
Characters are moving, even the secondary ones, whose reactions are so credible that we feel we know them.

ELLE. RAQUEL ROCA (SPAIN)
Elsa Osorio has the art (o gift) of narrating.

LIVRES HEBDO. VÉRONIQUE ROSSIGNOL (FRANCE)
Always gripped to look her country’s past right in the eye trough fiction (…) 492 pages of passion marked by the hand firmly attached to the reader’s back, with the flexible authority and the hold high-spirit of the tango dancer.

KÖSTLIN BOOKSHOP. IRENE KÖSTLIN (GERMANY)
If one has never danced a tango, you want to do it right away. It’s as if Elsa Osorio’s book took us to another world and forgot about today.

QUÉ LEER (SPAIN)
…an exciting account of a period in time that explains to the reader the possible causes that brought the country to its dramatic crisis in 2002.

AVIVA-BERLÍN. SABINE GRUNWALD (GERMANY)
The fascinating saga of a family that in a time of political and social transformations entwine with the success of a dance that had to overcome the barrier of prejudice. Feminine literature of a very special kind; it shows the strength of heroines to survive even in the most desperate situations.

ELLE. PASCALE FREY (FRANCE)
Telling Argentina’s story through tango and making it a character is an ingenious idea. A risky bet that reaches a high level in Elsa Osorio’s hand. By using tango as the thread that tells the saga of four generations, the author allows us to embark on a dance we wish will never end.

IL CAFFÈ DELLA PEPINA (ITALIA)
In the stories of present and past main characters, Elsa Osorio describes with great brilliance the history of Buenos Aires and tango, the real main character.

GUÍA DEL OCIO. MADRID (SPAIN)
Excellent writer. She recreates life in Buenos Aires and its music. Exciting. Not only is the captivating story distinguished, but also the way in which the different stories join with each other like the tango figures.

BINDERNAGEL FRIEDBERG. ELISABETH RON (GERMANY)
Not only is the captivating story distinguished, but also the way in which the different stories join with each other like figures of tango.

MORINGUE PORTUGAL
A fascinating admirable novel with multiple narrators which covers the history of tango and the one of Argentine society: the traditional families, the struggles and claims of the working class, immigration and its contribution to national identity.

CAMBIO 16. NATALIO BLANCO (SPAIN)
Sky of Tango rests on this hypnotic dance form Buenos Aires to look nostalgically at the destiny of a whole country.

IMPACT (FRANCE)
…a rich novel, precise and strongly sensual.

LA SALIDA. FRANCINE PIGET (FRANCE)
A catching novel where the fictional characters are based on real situations.

NORD ECLAIR (FRANCE)
…a strong literary work where the fantastic element is to claim for the vital strength.

VERA MAGAZINE. LORELLA MAGGIONI
A choral fascinating novel of bewitched rhythm where tango and its characters, musicians and dancers, move with the background of Argentine history

STILOS. EMILIA PAGLIANO
A book to read comfortably seated on a sofa listening to tango for the real main character of the novel, music, resounds in every page, while the other characters seem to hug on the dance floor making figures and then move away to let other dancers come.

ELLE. CRISTINA DE STEFANO (ITALY)
Novel, river; novel, music. Through Tango, main character that speaks in the first person, it is shown how people have danced it in its place of origin and under its spell they fell in love, they argued, they found and left each other. 

WEILAND WANDSBEK BOOKSHOP. TABEA BORN (HAMBURG, GERMANY)
Sky of Tango is marvelous and intelligently narrated family saga, and also an authentic book of one of a kind feminine literature.

ECURIES D’ÉCRITS. ALAIN BIROUSTE (FRANCE)
The beginning, development and evolution of this dance in the bosom of a society that goes from opulence to rough poverty. While reading we feel we know everything about Tango so that we are possessed by it…and its temptations. A sweet shiver.

MANGIALIBRI.COM (ITALY)
Milonga as a backstage, as a theatre of war, of love stories, as a symbol of Argentine identity that Osorio evokes with the melancholy of dreams and with the physical, almost painful desire of turning over the page and dealing for once with all the ghosts of the torture of death. And dance, dance, finally free.  

CHARLEMAGNE  (FRANCE)
An expressive novel, original and with an obvious good rhythm.

-Maruja Torres - El País (Spain)
"Elsa Osorio dramatically avoids the plain, she deepens, creates situations, characters: she wonders about the human condition under extreme circumstances". It is a novel about who we really are, in spite of whoever hurt us.

Ettore Botti - Corriere della Sera (Italy)
A story of feelings, as captivating as a detective story, where voices, ages and settings constantly mingle.

Michéle Gazier - Télérama (France)
This moving and relentless novel´s extraordinary achievement lies in the way it has been written and construed.

Osvaldo Bayer - Malasartes (Argentina)
A novel that has opened up the huge highway of the literature of memories, which I believe will eventually take its place in our neighbourhoods, our book stores and our children´s libraries.

Der Spiegel (Germany)
This book, written against oblivion, is a book that will never be forgotten.

Luisa Valenzuela - Buenos Aires. (Argentina)
An extremely touching novel, a novel that will make readers shiver, dragging them away from the comfort of their deceptive certainties.

Maia Bouteillet - Le matricule des anges (France)
A great story, that will render the reader breathless from beginning to end.

Martín Grzimek - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany)
Elsa Osorio succeeds in convincing the reader of the fact that narrative is the most effective way to guide him into reality.

Rui Ferreira E Sousa - Publico . Leituras.(Portugal)
A touching book that fits in with those novels you cannot let go to the very last page. A fiction story with characters so real, despite their being ficticious, so human in their contradictions, their utopias and their cruelty, that it could well be in our own time - it was only twenty years back - and yet so inhuman, that it is impossible to forget, let alone forgive.

Ariel Testori - Revista Humor (Argentina)
"The book, that describes the main characters marvellously as well as grievously, confronts the reader with the history of Argentine society in the light of the events such as child abduction that took place during the military dictatorship. And no-one can remain indifferent once they have read it.

Maarten Roest - Trow (Holland)
The author describes this tremendous subject through a well-chosen personal persepective, and furthermore, she accomplishes it resourcefully. Elsa Osorio is so well informed that she seems to be dealing with a true story.

Chus Pato - A Nossa Terra (Galicia)
The greatness of this book probably lies in the possibilities of action that the characters have been granted, to take part in history, not to become victims. Elsa Osorio´s writing is will power against tragedy, against the obscurity and silliness of misfortune. And this is why it is conventional narrative, but it is also against conventional narrative, thought, emotion and poetics. Containing a plot that is shocking and witty, this is not a novel to be read, it is to be devoured.

Diego Bagnera - Revista Viva. Clarín (Argentina)
Osorio raises a question that literally strikes every man and woman born between 1976, when the coup d´etat took place on March 24, and December 10, 1983, day in which Argentina recovered its democracy. And that question is "Are my parents my real parents?" And like Picasso and the the Guernica, she also might say "I am not the one who makes this question: it was raised when the very first abduction took place".

Jean Schalekamp - Bellver (Mallorca.Spain)
What is most surprising of the novel, that is based entirely on cruel reality, is the serious and sound way in which it is written. In spite of the dramatic events, that can sometimes border on melodrama, the nature of story remains impassive, almost laconic, with an occasional touch of humour. A magnificent novel.

Sara Bello Luís - Revista Visao (Portugal)
A courageous book, to read from beginning to end. In Ha vinte anos, Luz, Elsa Osorio grabs readers by the neck and tells them of a dramatic ordeal that people have begun to talk of only recently: young people in search of their own identity. Elsa Osorio proves to be excellent at suspense.

Christophe Tison - Cosmopolitain (France)
The most moving and captivating novel of the year.

Hans-Jürgen Schmitt Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)
Seldom has a Latin American narrator succeeded in developing a novel in such a convincing way, at the same time turning fiction into an extraordinary documentary.

Ana María Moix - Abc Libros (Spain)
Combining tenderness and harsh reality, a warm sense of humour and a relentless need to condemn, Elsa Osorio conveys a description of the human landscape of Argentina´s society, with characters from different social classes and contrary ideologies.

Mona Moncalvillo - A dos voces. TV. (Argentina)
I think this great book makes us come to terms with what we really are, and our past, and through all the characters, which have been so wonderfully described and intertwined, it makes us feel that we are Argentines and this is what we went through, and what we are going through still.

Buch Aktuell (Germany)
History can be forgetful, and yet literature reminds us. And through Osorio´s novel, it does so with true beauty.

Pascale Haubruge - Le Soir (Belgium)
This novel should be read in order to learn more. To further understand the nature of the criminal actions that took place during the dictatorship in Argentina, but more importantly, it should be read for what it is: a novel of human and literary magnificence. An overwhelming story driven by a multiple narrative that maintains its vitality. A story of courage and emotion, a search for identity. A book truly worth reading.

Lluís Satorras - El País - Babelia(Spain)
Out of confusion due to such terrible events, an important literary edifice has emerged: a structure, convincing characters, a viewpoint, a rich and meaningful literary style.

Osvaldo Quiroga - El refugio de la cultura, CN. TV (Argentina)
The best novel I have read in the passed ten years. I was truly impressed and I have to admit, I wept. In it, we connect with our history.

Beatriz Pottecher - La esfera El Mundo de los libros(Spain)
"A thrilling novel, the kind you can´t put down; it is feminine and political, in the good sense of both words, a woman who was abducted at birth, during the Argentine dictatorship, in search of her true identity.

Frédéric Tinguely - Le Temps. (Switzerland)
Thanks to an efficient narrative, Osorio manages to weave a plot of an extreme complexity. Led by the heroine´s search for truth, the reader discovers signs, asks himself, discovers exciting convergences. In short, he implies himself.

Luísa Mellid-Franco - Expresso (Portugal)
A first class writer. More than a just good book, an essential book.

José Zepeda - Radio Nederlands (Holland)
Osorio has written a moving story. To read it is to embark, any place and time, onto the train of horror, not as yet another macabre account of the Argentine dictatorship, but as a means to relive the everyday fears, to get a glimpse of the settings and the dramatic situations of the diverse characters.

Philippe Nourry - Le Point (France)
Osorio writes an outstandingly effective testimony-novel that tears our heart to pieces.

Peter Venmans - De Volkskrant (Holland)
Luz is a novel even more compromising than any of Sartre´s novels. However, Osorio never incurs in an easy opinionated black versus white. She understands that in Argentina, lies and truth are very much connected. The book is moderately optimistic: as optimistic as it can get after the things that happened.