Santa Evita - Hardcover

Among the great corpses of our age are Lenin, Mao Tse-tung and Stalin. Mao, at least, is still on view for the masses to see, some two decades after his demise. But no corpse engendered as much intrigue as that of Eva Peron. Elevated to near sainthood in Argentina after her death in 1952, her perfectly preserved corpse was seized by the Argentine Army following the ouster of her husband in 1955. By then her corpse had acquired the status of a sacred relic, and while army officials wanted to keep it out of the hands of Peronists, they were loath to destroy the corpse for fear of the backlash that might follow. Tomas Eloy Martinez has reassembled the story of the corpse of Eve Peron in Santa Evita, and in the process, produced a riveting, rich book that not only tells the tale of one of the more bizarre sagas in the history of South American politics, but that also gets to the heart of the age-old human impulse to create myths and tell stories.

"The most powerful work of fiction to come from Latin America since One Hundred Years of Solitude
" (Alberto Manguel Independent)

"An extraordinary story of passion and craziness... You have to read this book" (Isabel Allende)

"Brilliant...a profound meditation on the nature and meaning of memory, the relationship between authors and subjects, and the anarchic drive of popular mythology...Few Latin American writers have confronted their countries' past with the wit, style and candour that Mr Martinez shows in Santa Evita...he affirms his place among Latin America's best writers" (Nicholas Shumway New York Times Book Review)

"A master novel... I got choked up, I suffered, I enjoyed, and in the course of reading I picked up bad habits and betrayed my most liberal principles...Santa Evita should be banned... or read without delay" (Mario Vargas Llosa)

"Dazzling Gothic novel, perverse love story, impressive horror story... a beautiful book, a miracle" (Carlos Fuentes)