Argentinian writer Pedro Mairal has become one of the leading voices in contemporary Latin American fiction, and The Woman from Uruguay is perhaps his most accomplished novel.

Originally published in Spanish as La uruguaya in 2016, it follows Lucas Pereyra, a struggling writer who travels from Buenos Aires to Montevideo for what he imagines will be a straightforward financial errand and a rendezvous with a younger woman. Over the course of a single day, that simple premise slowly unravels into something far more searching.

What begins as a story of infidelity becomes an acute portrait of masculine self-deception, middle age and economic precarity. Mairal has a remarkable ability to capture the gap between the stories we tell ourselves and the lives we are actually living, balancing dry humour with genuine melancholy. Set against the easy crossings between Argentina and Uruguay, the novel explores desire, money, parenthood, creative frustration and the quiet collapse of certainty. Compact, elegant and psychologically precise, it's an excellent entry point into contemporary Latin American literature and will appeal to readers of Rachel Cusk, Fleur Jaeggy, Javier Marías and Alejandro Zambra.

First UK paperback edition, Bloomsbury, 2021. Translated from the Spanish by Jennifer Croft. Very good condition with light shelf wear.