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We Are Green and Trembling
We Are Green and Trembling is a reimagining of history and the life of Antonio de Erauso, a Basque nun turned war lieutenant during the Spanish Conquista in 17th-century Argentina - a fascinating, largely forgotten figure from world history and one of South America’s most famous trans men.
Having left the Basque Country behind many years ago, Antonio has travelled across the Americas, reinventing himself every time. Now, Antonio is hiding deep in the jungle with two young Guaraní girls, having escaped imprisonment and a death sentence.
The novel is a searing criticism of conquest and colonialism, religious tyranny and the treatment of women and indigenous people; a queer reclamation set in the rainforest - itself a magical, surreal space for transformation.
Having left the Basque Country behind many years ago, Antonio has travelled across the Americas, reinventing himself every time. Now, Antonio is hiding deep in the jungle with two young Guaraní girls, having escaped imprisonment and a death sentence.
The novel is a searing criticism of conquest and colonialism, religious tyranny and the treatment of women and indigenous people; a queer reclamation set in the rainforest - itself a magical, surreal space for transformation.
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2023
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8961 people want to read
About the author
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
29 books561 followersGabriela Cabezón Cámara (San Isidro, 4 de noviembre de 1968) es una escritora y periodista argentina. Es considerada una de las figuras más prominentes de la literatura latinoamericana contemporánea, además de ser una destacada intelectual y activista feminista y socioambientalista.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 394 reviews
March 23, 2026
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026
Book 3/13
2.5*
For better of the worse, six of the books on the longlist are written by authors that are not new to me. Three of the previous novels I read by them were awarded with 4*, the other 3 with 3* or less. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and I do not seem to be compatible, a fact which became even more obvious after reading this 2nd novel by her. I would define my reading experience as painfully tedious. For such a small novel, if sure felt like a hefty tome. It was too lyrical and heavy, just like the jungle it describes.
So, the plot. The author recreates the fictional story of Antonio de Erauso , a woman who lived as a man during the conquering of Peru. She ran away from her aunt’s convent to explore the world as a boy and ended up in the Peruvian jungle. The novel shifts between the present, where he flees a death conviction together with 2 native children, two monkeys and 1 horse and the recent past, where we learn about the circumstances of his escape. During this escape, Antonio beggins to write a letter to his aunt , where we get to learn all about Antonio’s past. The letters include a lot of religious filling, which I did my best to skip. At the same time, there is dialogue between the now man and the children, which sometimes takes place in another language. Yes, there is also a lot of talk about god. Also poems about Creation.
As if the whole thing wasn’t murky enough, the ending enters full force inside the magical realism realm. Pfff, that ending couldn’t come fast enough. I am not sure what I do not like about the author’s writing, it just isn’t for me. There is a lot of vivid violence in it, but it did not bother me as I am currently contemplating giving 5* to Ana Paula Maia’s novel, which is equally bloody. Maybe, there aren’t any scorched people, but there are plenty of corpses.
Other novel written by the author:
The Adventures of China Iron
Book 3/13
2.5*
For better of the worse, six of the books on the longlist are written by authors that are not new to me. Three of the previous novels I read by them were awarded with 4*, the other 3 with 3* or less. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and I do not seem to be compatible, a fact which became even more obvious after reading this 2nd novel by her. I would define my reading experience as painfully tedious. For such a small novel, if sure felt like a hefty tome. It was too lyrical and heavy, just like the jungle it describes.
So, the plot. The author recreates the fictional story of Antonio de Erauso , a woman who lived as a man during the conquering of Peru. She ran away from her aunt’s convent to explore the world as a boy and ended up in the Peruvian jungle. The novel shifts between the present, where he flees a death conviction together with 2 native children, two monkeys and 1 horse and the recent past, where we learn about the circumstances of his escape. During this escape, Antonio beggins to write a letter to his aunt , where we get to learn all about Antonio’s past. The letters include a lot of religious filling, which I did my best to skip. At the same time, there is dialogue between the now man and the children, which sometimes takes place in another language. Yes, there is also a lot of talk about god. Also poems about Creation.
As if the whole thing wasn’t murky enough, the ending enters full force inside the magical realism realm. Pfff, that ending couldn’t come fast enough. I am not sure what I do not like about the author’s writing, it just isn’t for me. There is a lot of vivid violence in it, but it did not bother me as I am currently contemplating giving 5* to Ana Paula Maia’s novel, which is equally bloody. Maybe, there aren’t any scorched people, but there are plenty of corpses.
Other novel written by the author:
The Adventures of China Iron
January 22, 2024
No le puse 3 estrellas porque el libro estuviera malo, no, es que fue demasiado para mi cabeza. Pero esa es solo mi culpa, no de Gabriela que es una magnifica narradora que logra meter una historia extraordinaria como es la vida de "la Monja Alferez (Catalina de Euraso) que parece que fue el primer honbre trans del que se tiene registro. Su vida es, justo, para escribirla, una mujer que decidió ser libre en los 1500, que se escapa de un convento de monjas y empieza una vida errante, se cambia el nombre, se hace hombre y ahí nace Antonio, quien es el que nos está contando la historia a través de una carta que le manda a su tía en forma de memorias.
La novela corre en tres tiempos con lenguajes y dialectos diferentes y es difícil seguirle la pista porque las primera 100 páginas como que no entiendes porque en un capítulo hay una voz, el siguiente se situa en otro tiempo y espacio, pero el siguiente es otro... es muy muy muy poético, lo cual por momentos tiene una lucidez brilante (las cartas a la tía son de una belleza absoluta) pero, me llegó a cansar cuando no eran las cartas...
Gabriela maneja el lenguaje de los 1500 de manera extraordinaria y la historia lo es... solo que 1)me hubiera gustado un prólogo 2) un diccionario al pie de guaraní (perdí mucho tiempo buscando en Google la mitad del libro) y eso hacía que me distrajera. Soy yo, no ella.
Es un libro para lectores con mucha paciencia pero es extrardinario.
La novela corre en tres tiempos con lenguajes y dialectos diferentes y es difícil seguirle la pista porque las primera 100 páginas como que no entiendes porque en un capítulo hay una voz, el siguiente se situa en otro tiempo y espacio, pero el siguiente es otro... es muy muy muy poético, lo cual por momentos tiene una lucidez brilante (las cartas a la tía son de una belleza absoluta) pero, me llegó a cansar cuando no eran las cartas...
Gabriela maneja el lenguaje de los 1500 de manera extraordinaria y la historia lo es... solo que 1)me hubiera gustado un prólogo 2) un diccionario al pie de guaraní (perdí mucho tiempo buscando en Google la mitad del libro) y eso hacía que me distrajera. Soy yo, no ella.
Es un libro para lectores con mucha paciencia pero es extrardinario.
Did not finish
March 4, 2026 Read #6 of the 2026 International Booker Prize
I have to agree with the majority of readers that the first half of this is boring, and even the promise of a compelling second half isn't enough to motivate me to pick this up. I've been trying to read this for 10 days, and given this is less than 200 pages, that tells you how attached I am to this narrative. Again, this title was quite low down my priority list prior the it's inclusion on the longlist, so it's no surprise it didn't work for me. If you're interested in the premise, don't let my subjective review dissuade you!
This suffers from a similar issue I have with other titles on this year's longlist: they're not poorly written in isolation, but they read much better with appropriate historical context for the events and figures mentioned. This book felt the most inaccessible to me, and I found myself watching a 30-minute biography of Antonio de Erauso to try to piece together the connections between characters and events.
The book is dense, the structure is ambitious, and I feel like the book demands a little too much from the reader. Perhaps in isolation, this would be fine, but given the rest of the longlist is fairly dense as well, I need some sort of reprieve between entries. I would anticipate this is a likely contender for the shortlist, which may encourage me to give this a second attempt. But given the three storytelling threads and density of the prose, I'm not sure I'm clever enough to keep up and appreciate this.
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I have to agree with the majority of readers that the first half of this is boring, and even the promise of a compelling second half isn't enough to motivate me to pick this up. I've been trying to read this for 10 days, and given this is less than 200 pages, that tells you how attached I am to this narrative. Again, this title was quite low down my priority list prior the it's inclusion on the longlist, so it's no surprise it didn't work for me. If you're interested in the premise, don't let my subjective review dissuade you!
This suffers from a similar issue I have with other titles on this year's longlist: they're not poorly written in isolation, but they read much better with appropriate historical context for the events and figures mentioned. This book felt the most inaccessible to me, and I found myself watching a 30-minute biography of Antonio de Erauso to try to piece together the connections between characters and events.
The book is dense, the structure is ambitious, and I feel like the book demands a little too much from the reader. Perhaps in isolation, this would be fine, but given the rest of the longlist is fairly dense as well, I need some sort of reprieve between entries. I would anticipate this is a likely contender for the shortlist, which may encourage me to give this a second attempt. But given the three storytelling threads and density of the prose, I'm not sure I'm clever enough to keep up and appreciate this.
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September 23, 2024
Amigas Léanselo porque tenemos que hablar de esto que hace Gabriela con la monja alférez/ escoger a ese personaje para narrar la violencia de la colonización española mientras la introduce en la cosmovisión de los mbya guaraní…… bien fuerte
October 23, 2025
This was a fantastic read. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara reimagines the life of Antonio de Erauso, a former Basque nun who fled the convent, lived as a man, and became a soldier during the Spanish conquest of South America. The writing is astonishing in its richness and texture, alternating between crassness and lyricism, with a mix of coarse, punchy statements and long, undulating sentences that are incredibly alive and beautiful. The language weaves in phrases in Spanish, Guaraní, Basque, and Latin, creating a gorgeous soundscape that reflects the obvious linguistic collisions that would occur during the terrible colonization that is so wonderfully imagined in this novel.
Antonio is an incredibly well-written, complex character. He is complicit in the brutality of the empire, a murderer who has fully participated in the subjugation of others, but he increasingly questions and revolts against the catastrophic violence inflicted as part of a divine, sovereign purpose. The novel’s critique of European colonialism is sharp and unrelenting, exposing the religious rhetoric that really is nothing more than a cloak for insatiable greed and an unquenchable thirst for domination. Cámara also explores questions of identity, fate, and divine justice in lyrical and sometimes abstract language that features recurring imagery of cages and flight, and of bodies being reshaped and transformed by the world around them. There is a profound reverence for the natural world, a recognition of humanity’s smallness within it, and a belief in constant cycles of metamorphosis and rebirth.
We Are Green and Trembling achieves a gorgeous synthesis of deep moral inquiry, rich historical imagination, and stunning prose that I couldn’t wait to return to each time I put the book down. Cámara writes with so much conviction and beauty and has become an author I will look forward to reading whenever she publishes a book.
Antonio is an incredibly well-written, complex character. He is complicit in the brutality of the empire, a murderer who has fully participated in the subjugation of others, but he increasingly questions and revolts against the catastrophic violence inflicted as part of a divine, sovereign purpose. The novel’s critique of European colonialism is sharp and unrelenting, exposing the religious rhetoric that really is nothing more than a cloak for insatiable greed and an unquenchable thirst for domination. Cámara also explores questions of identity, fate, and divine justice in lyrical and sometimes abstract language that features recurring imagery of cages and flight, and of bodies being reshaped and transformed by the world around them. There is a profound reverence for the natural world, a recognition of humanity’s smallness within it, and a belief in constant cycles of metamorphosis and rebirth.
We Are Green and Trembling achieves a gorgeous synthesis of deep moral inquiry, rich historical imagination, and stunning prose that I couldn’t wait to return to each time I put the book down. Cámara writes with so much conviction and beauty and has become an author I will look forward to reading whenever she publishes a book.
March 22, 2026
You must know, you do know, do you not? - that beneath the earth the trees live another life, a life we cannot see, the life of their roots entwined, a web of trees, separate above but together below. They rise up, one by one, but they sustain each other. I see them because I myself am taking root, I lace myself into them as they lace themselves into me. They speak to me in a wordless language and I understand them, they say that we are here, we are in the sun and the water, a bond between the earth and heavens, the breath of God creating itself and creating us with each passing instant. We are that which creates life between the rocks and the stars. Star and rock incarnate, we are green and trembling.
Longlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize
Winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature
Originally published in 2023 and translated from Spanish by Robin Myers.
This is the author (also a environmentalist and anti-gender-based-violence activist)’s fourth novel and third to be translated into English (all with different translators) after “Slum Virgin” (2009/2017) and “The Adventures of China Iron” (2017/2019).
The original title would translate as “The Girls of the Orange Grove” but the English title – which the author prefers – was suggested by her agent.
And I have to be honest I am not a great fan of her work to date – the first was I felt the weakest of the first set of novels published by Charco Press (albeit “Die. My Love” and “Fireflies” did set an unattainable bar) – I felt there were too many barriers between me and a proper appreciation. And the second (shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020) was for me easily the weakest on that list – a first part which I felt needed an appreciation of the Argentinian gaucho poem “Martin Fierro” with two subsequent sections that meant I did not really want to make that effort.
This is her third novel has I think very distinct overlaps with the second – here instead of a rewriting of the story of the hero of a historic poem, we have an alternative rendition of the life of a historical figure: Antonio de Erauso – born in the late 17thCentury Basque City of Donastia (better known by its Spanish name San Sebastian), who grew up as a girl in a convent before escaping, adopting a male identity and carrying out a series of famous (if self aggrandizing) exploits (and it has to be said murders and colonial atrocities) all across South America.
And just like the first in what I have seen described in a perceptive review as deliberate counter-colonialism, Cabezón Cámara subverts the historical narrative by adding an environmentally tinged Panglossian narrative arc – although one I think is perhaps a challenge for Western readers (albeit not it seems prize judges) who I think, particularly with feminist Latin American literary novels, have almost come to expect an absence of any redemptive element to the writing – to expect a denunciation without destination.
The set up of the novel is quite complex for its relatively short length.
Antonio is on the run in the jungle with a motley entourage of two rather cheeky young Guarani girls (one he took with him when he escaped, the other he found shortly after), two even cheekier monkeys, a loyal dog, a horse and its foal (who leave part way through the novel). He is on a vague quest for a probably mythical orange grove (he believes he saw in a vision) – part of a pledge he made to the Virgin (whose link with oranges is from an extra-biblical story of the Holy Family’s return from Egypt). While he travels he tells the girls about the Christian creation story (they in turn sharing theirs at a later stage), answers their sometimes impudent questions (which mix English with Guarani) and attempts to keep them fed and watered while evading danger – albeit all along we have the impression that both the local Indians and even the jungle itself is protecting them and this sense grows stronger as the story increasingly shades to magic realism (the story ending with girls transforming to jaguars and jungle trees to ent-like warriors). This section almost worked for me but never really fully engaged me – feeling always a little too fantastical.
But interspersed with this and in a deliberately formal tone, Antonio writes to his Aunt back in Spain setting out the story of his life – this section I think based reasonable heavily on Erauso’s own autobiographical writings - which has both the advantage that it saves extensive Wikipedia research and the disadvantage that it can read a little like Wikipedia in what is often a blur of incidents (which seems to consist of a cycle of charming into a new position, lose temper, attack someone, take refuge in a church, get jailed anyway, get freed by a fellow Basque, flee, find new position ….).
Perhaps more successfully we also get: first flashbacks to his last imprisonment, this time facing almost certain and imminent hanging in a Spanish army fort before fortuity and perhaps Virgin-intervention earn him a role as secretary to the camp’s tyrannical Captain, a role from which he escapes; secondly the Captain’s determination to hunt him down as part of a gold-based native genocide (which provokes the jungle-led fight back).
Overall, for me this was the strongest of the author’s novels to date but still I think one of my least favourite on the longlist.
Faced with death, any glory is but a leaf aflutter in the wind: if there is anything that makes us equals as nobles and peasants and saints and sinners and Indians and white men, it is the dance of the Angel of Death.
January 19, 2024
Me gustó pues describe la vida, o reinterpreta, de Catalina de Erauso. Una persona que rompió toda barrera del género en pleno siglo XVI y pocas personas conocen.
Es un libro toda su tiempo leer pues la narración es de ritmo lento y descriptivo con pocos diálogos. Te recomiendo tomarte todo el tiempo necesario para poderlo disfrutar.
Los personajes son buenos, pues cumplen con su arco evolutivo, pero prefiero aún más la ambientación y la historia.
Te recomiendo este libro si te interesa la historia de la conquista y te interesan temas de género.
Es un libro toda su tiempo leer pues la narración es de ritmo lento y descriptivo con pocos diálogos. Te recomiendo tomarte todo el tiempo necesario para poderlo disfrutar.
Los personajes son buenos, pues cumplen con su arco evolutivo, pero prefiero aún más la ambientación y la historia.
Te recomiendo este libro si te interesa la historia de la conquista y te interesan temas de género.
November 13, 2025
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara creates a densely believable 16th century world of conquest in this puzzling novel… believable until it veers into magical realism that is.
Antonio Erauso is sitting in the jungle, with two indigenous children, two monkeys and two horses, writing letters to his aunt, the prioress of a Basque convent. These stories tell the story of his life in the new world, and it is quite the story, for Antonio was born Catalina and was raised in that same convent. A series of misadventures (or just daily life in the Wild West of colonial South America) have brought him here, on the run from the authorities and playing unlikely surrogate parent to two girls, who he has sworn to defend because… well, it all gets a bit convoluted there. Suffice to say it has more to do with the Spanish title, Las niñas del naranjel than the rather odd English one.
The colonial world Antonio has left behind is painted in gruesome detail—hanged soldiers, Indians roasting on pyres, a lascivious bishop and captain. There is also a kind of sick nostalgia found here; Antonio is selected as the captain’s favourite because he sings the old Basque lullabies of both their childhoods.
The structure of this book is intricate. The first half unfolds towards the moment we find Antonio writing through a triple conceit: the letters to the aunt, scenes from the past several days, and conversations with the two girls, who ask endless questions, sometimes in their own language. And though Antonio is presented as explaining the world to them, it is clear they have their own cultural understanding of creation, of the white man, and of the jungle itself.
After the halfway point, the book suddenly accelerates at breakneck speed towards a magic-infused conclusion.
Honestly, I was left scratching my head a little. First there is Antonio, who the historical record paints as quite a brutal character, murdering and pillaging his way through South America, but who here is given a more sympathetic treatment. Then there is the conclusion, which seems to paint an indigenous culture triumphant, rising up to defeat their Spanish overlords. Which just… ??? It is frustrating in a book that clearly takes pains to represent the diversity of colonial life, with a text that contains words from other languages eradicated or all-but-eradicated by Spanish conquest, is so wishy-washy about what it is actually saying.
Looking back, I had almost identical problems with Cabezón’s previous book, The Adventures of China Iron, where I complained that “Cabezón Cámara has said that she prioritizes the musicality of language and the form of the writing over content: ‘if I feel the vibrations of the words, I’m okay with whatever is happening,’ and the reader can definitely sense that.” Or, again quoting myself, “this book reads like something of a novel-as-wish-fulfillment. What if Argentina, instead of being forged from blood and violence, massacres, abuse, marginalization and Europeanization, had been born instead from peace, love, one-ness with nature, acceptance of difference?” I got the same vibe here (minus Argentina; I believe this one is set in Peru) except that we get all the blood and violence and massacres, we just get the wish-fulfilment on top of them.
Puzzling, if nicely written and original.
Antonio Erauso is sitting in the jungle, with two indigenous children, two monkeys and two horses, writing letters to his aunt, the prioress of a Basque convent. These stories tell the story of his life in the new world, and it is quite the story, for Antonio was born Catalina and was raised in that same convent. A series of misadventures (or just daily life in the Wild West of colonial South America) have brought him here, on the run from the authorities and playing unlikely surrogate parent to two girls, who he has sworn to defend because… well, it all gets a bit convoluted there. Suffice to say it has more to do with the Spanish title, Las niñas del naranjel than the rather odd English one.
The colonial world Antonio has left behind is painted in gruesome detail—hanged soldiers, Indians roasting on pyres, a lascivious bishop and captain. There is also a kind of sick nostalgia found here; Antonio is selected as the captain’s favourite because he sings the old Basque lullabies of both their childhoods.
The structure of this book is intricate. The first half unfolds towards the moment we find Antonio writing through a triple conceit: the letters to the aunt, scenes from the past several days, and conversations with the two girls, who ask endless questions, sometimes in their own language. And though Antonio is presented as explaining the world to them, it is clear they have their own cultural understanding of creation, of the white man, and of the jungle itself.
After the halfway point, the book suddenly accelerates at breakneck speed towards a magic-infused conclusion.
Honestly, I was left scratching my head a little. First there is Antonio, who the historical record paints as quite a brutal character, murdering and pillaging his way through South America, but who here is given a more sympathetic treatment. Then there is the conclusion, which seems to paint an indigenous culture triumphant, rising up to defeat their Spanish overlords. Which just… ??? It is frustrating in a book that clearly takes pains to represent the diversity of colonial life, with a text that contains words from other languages eradicated or all-but-eradicated by Spanish conquest, is so wishy-washy about what it is actually saying.
Looking back, I had almost identical problems with Cabezón’s previous book, The Adventures of China Iron, where I complained that “Cabezón Cámara has said that she prioritizes the musicality of language and the form of the writing over content: ‘if I feel the vibrations of the words, I’m okay with whatever is happening,’ and the reader can definitely sense that.” Or, again quoting myself, “this book reads like something of a novel-as-wish-fulfillment. What if Argentina, instead of being forged from blood and violence, massacres, abuse, marginalization and Europeanization, had been born instead from peace, love, one-ness with nature, acceptance of difference?” I got the same vibe here (minus Argentina; I believe this one is set in Peru) except that we get all the blood and violence and massacres, we just get the wish-fulfilment on top of them.
Puzzling, if nicely written and original.
Want to read
March 21, 2026Winner of the National Book Award for Translated Literature 2025
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026
"A sumptuous and surreal historical reimagining of one of South America’s best-known trans men" - okay, let's check it out!
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026
"A sumptuous and surreal historical reimagining of one of South America’s best-known trans men" - okay, let's check it out!
March 2, 2026
Longlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize
Winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature
You must know, you do know, do you not? - that beneath the earth the trees live another life, a life we cannot see, the life of their roots entwined, a web of trees, separate above but together belowe. They rise up, one by one, but they sustain each other. I see them because I myself am taking root, I lace myself into them as they lace themselves into me. They speak to me in a wordless language and I understand them, they say that we are here, we are in the sun and the water, a bond between the earth and heavens, the breath of God creating itself and creating us with each passing instant. We are that which creates life between the rocks and the stars. Star and rock incarnate, we are green and trembling.
We Are Green and Trembling (2025) is Robin Myers' translation of Las niñas del naranjel (2023) by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, and is published by New Directions in the US and Vintage in the UK. The original title would translate as The Girls of the Orange Grove, or similar, but the change in title for the English version was suggested by the author's agent, and Cabezón Cámara has said, in an interview for World Without Borders on winning the National Book Award, that "it suits the novel much better than the original does.
This is the third of the author's novels in translation, after two previously published by Charco Press:
Slum Virgin (2017), translated by Frances Riddle, from La Virgen Cabeza (2009) - my review.
The Adventures of China Iron (2019), translated by Iona Macintyre and Fiona Macintosh from Las aventuas de la China Iron (2017), which was longlisted for the 2020 International Booker - my review.
Each of the three is different from the others, and distinctive from most literature - if not always entirely successful.
We Are Green and Trembling is inspired by the real-life 16th-17th century Catalina/Antonio de Erauso, also known as La Monja Alférez (The Lieutenant Nun) who began his (*) life as a young girl in a convent and spent much of it an explorer in the New World. Historians are split on Erauso's sexual orientation and gender identity, and the novelistic character Antonio - and it's key that this is a creative novel, not a work of historic non-fiction - opens his account from the jungles of the Americas:
My beloved aunt,
I am as innocent and forged in the image and likeness of God as any other, as every other, though I have been a cabin boy, shopkeeper, and soldier, and before then, long before, a small girl at your skirts. "Daughter," “little daughter," so did you call me, and not even now, not even with my martial shoulders and my mustache and my calloused sword-wielding bands, would you think to describe me otherwise.
(* I use the main pronoun, following the novel)
The novel essentially has three strands - or two, one with two sub-strands:
1a) Antonio is in the jungle, having fled from his compatriots with a young Mbyá Guaraní girl being held in their captivity, plus another he found shortly after, two monkeys, a horse and its foal, and a dog he acquired. He attempts to answer the girls' questions about the Christian creation story, while they tell him their people's origin story, from the Ayub Rapyta. This section is somewhat feverish, crossing into magic realism at times, as Antonio is immersed in the sights and sounds of the jungle; and with the girls' replies to him largely Guaraní words, it's unclear if Antonio's dialogue with them is real or imagined.
Antonio believes he may be protected by the Holy Virgin, who he refers to as the Virgin of the Orange Grove, from a biblical story he tells, and he vowed to the virgin he would take the girls to a grove of oranges he recalls seeing, transplated from Spain, somewhere in the jungle, but is unable to find. In practice, the company is largely protected by Indians, the girls' people, observing the group from a distance.
The light barely moves. But it does move. Is anything still except him? Not even him. His hand also moves, back and forth. And he breathes as he writes. He runs and yells when Kuaru and Tekaka or the girls make off with his sword or dagger, giggling as they escape. Antonio didn't know that monkeys laughed until one day they pelted him with pacará pods. Now he knows it, but barely even notices their laughter, as he understands that the breeze rustling the leaves is faint because the light barely moves. The shadows are often softer here in the jungle, which is dense with shade, though it also lives in the light of the sun, like everything else in this world. Like the she-leopard with the luminous aura he sees each night, circling the hut, licking the faces of Mitakuña and Michi, who curl their tiny bodies between the great cat's paws. He wakes every time with his heart thrashing in his chest, fleet and furious. He opens his eyes. Nothing but the girls asleep. And something like fireflies flitting around them. He knows fear, Antonio does. And the she-jaguar terrifies him. It's the jungle itself baring its teeth, showing its strength, its hunger. Its means of giving death. Just like that, in a flash, like a lightning bolt cast down by God. Maybe God is a she-jaguar. Or the beetle he's just spied inside a flower. Like a precious stone glittering in the fragrance of the blossom's white cup. He doesn't know. But what he does know is that he's surrounded by Indians who are looking after him. Why? What has he done for anyone to look after him? It must be a miracle of the Virgin of the Orange Grove. Or else because he's protecting the girls.
If not initially an easy read, these sections are much the book's high point for me.
1b) during his journey into the jungle, Antonio writes a letter to his aunt, setting out his own story since the time he left her convent, one full of misadventures, and indeed murders with those who cross Antonio's path - this part something of a potted rehash of the real-life character's autiobiography, Historia de la Monja Alférez, Catalina de Erauso, escrita por ella misma. The issues of Antonio/Catalina's gender identity and sexuality are not really addressed in any detail, indeed at time seem rather incidental.
2) a story set some days before strand 1, although converging on it, tells us of Antonio with the Spanish garrison, where he was initially on death row for one of his many misdemeanours (although possibly one of which he is, unusually, innocent), and what led him to first escape death, but then to flee with the girl.
(for reasons that weren't entirely obvious to me, this section also has one soldier reading extract of, the relatively recently published, Don Quixote to another, with, in English, sections from Edith Grossman's famed translation)
Antonio, observing the abuse, mass hangings and burnings of both native Indians but also foot-soldier from his prison cell window comes to a realisation:
He soon began to think that crimes harbored their own direction, each crime its course, depending on who'd committed them. White or Indian. Rich or poor. Leading to the noose and the pyre or to the throne and the treasury. Two men could commit the same crime together: one would end up on the pyre and the other much better off than before, daubed in the drool of adoration. Object of praise and bronze statues. Crowned in gold. The direction of the offense, where it gallops like a sprightly steed, Antonio calculated, is the product of two factors: one, the cradle of the crime, the worldly place occupied by its perpetrator; and two, the might of his enemies.
And this is where I struggled with the book: perhaps the most intriguing thing about La Monja Alférez (The Lieutenant Nun) is the juxtaposition of his transgender/intersex role-modelling with the fact of his personal behaviour (duels, brawls, stabbings etc) and his enthusiastic participation in the violent excesses of colonialism. The novel acknowledges the personal side in the letter to his aunt, although rather as something in Antonio's path, but has him, agains the historical evidence, turning against the abuse of the Guarini people, and thereby finding comfort in his own self:
The house is the palace of the queen of the butterflies, or the hummingbirds. Or both. Everything is colorful. Nothing is still. The breeze stirs the feathers and petals that glimmer and darken and glimmer again. It's a good place to wait for help, Antonio decides, if his fellows should come. Well, his former fellows. Even if they never truly were. He's always been a foreigner among his own. He spent a lifetime concealed behind garments, behind a new name, a new tale. Fleeing the flames. Almost always. When he traveled back to the old world, he no longer hid his true name or his true story. Nor did he know any longer what his true story was. Telling and retelling the one he'd written so the king would recognize his right to a pension, and so he'd look like someone worthy of a pension, disoriented him. He returned to America. Went back to being, yet again, anyone. To flee again, though he no longer needed to. Now, in this abiding, in this jungle, with these girls, these animals, in this state of being with no story and no name, he feels comfortable. He could stay here.
And the convergence of the two strands, when the soldiers come close to tracking down Antonio's party also has elements of wishful eco-revisionism, as the jungle itself overcomes the armed Spaniards.
A worthy inclusion on the list, but with elements that frustrated me.
National Book Prize judges' citation
Told in a breathless, febrile, gripping narration—never less than brilliantly rendered into English by translator Robin Myers—and seamlessly interweaving Basque and Guaraní elements, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s novel is extraordinarily rich. At once gender-, culture-, language-, and consciousness-bending, Cabezón Cámara reconstructs the half-dream, half-nightmare that was the encounter with the New World for its first European “conquerors.” We Are Green and Trembling is a magnificent tour-de-force of imagination and of the endless, hallucinatory possibilities of language.
Booker judges' citation
‘In this fiercely imaginative reworking of colonial history, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara gives voice to the 17th-century figure Antonio de Erauso, who writes from the depths of the South American jungle after fleeing imperial authority. While caring for two Indigenous girls he has freed from enslavement, Antonio becomes both witness to and participant in the brutal machinery of conquest. Written in luminous, wild, lyrical and inventive language, We Are Green and Trembling is at once playful and devastating, tender and enraging. This imaginative novel critiques familiar narratives of colonialism and empire while offering moments of startling beauty and transformation. It is a vivid and audacious story that reclaims history through language itself.’
Winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature
You must know, you do know, do you not? - that beneath the earth the trees live another life, a life we cannot see, the life of their roots entwined, a web of trees, separate above but together belowe. They rise up, one by one, but they sustain each other. I see them because I myself am taking root, I lace myself into them as they lace themselves into me. They speak to me in a wordless language and I understand them, they say that we are here, we are in the sun and the water, a bond between the earth and heavens, the breath of God creating itself and creating us with each passing instant. We are that which creates life between the rocks and the stars. Star and rock incarnate, we are green and trembling.
We Are Green and Trembling (2025) is Robin Myers' translation of Las niñas del naranjel (2023) by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, and is published by New Directions in the US and Vintage in the UK. The original title would translate as The Girls of the Orange Grove, or similar, but the change in title for the English version was suggested by the author's agent, and Cabezón Cámara has said, in an interview for World Without Borders on winning the National Book Award, that "it suits the novel much better than the original does.
This is the third of the author's novels in translation, after two previously published by Charco Press:
Slum Virgin (2017), translated by Frances Riddle, from La Virgen Cabeza (2009) - my review.
The Adventures of China Iron (2019), translated by Iona Macintyre and Fiona Macintosh from Las aventuas de la China Iron (2017), which was longlisted for the 2020 International Booker - my review.
Each of the three is different from the others, and distinctive from most literature - if not always entirely successful.
We Are Green and Trembling is inspired by the real-life 16th-17th century Catalina/Antonio de Erauso, also known as La Monja Alférez (The Lieutenant Nun) who began his (*) life as a young girl in a convent and spent much of it an explorer in the New World. Historians are split on Erauso's sexual orientation and gender identity, and the novelistic character Antonio - and it's key that this is a creative novel, not a work of historic non-fiction - opens his account from the jungles of the Americas:
My beloved aunt,
I am as innocent and forged in the image and likeness of God as any other, as every other, though I have been a cabin boy, shopkeeper, and soldier, and before then, long before, a small girl at your skirts. "Daughter," “little daughter," so did you call me, and not even now, not even with my martial shoulders and my mustache and my calloused sword-wielding bands, would you think to describe me otherwise.
(* I use the main pronoun, following the novel)
The novel essentially has three strands - or two, one with two sub-strands:
1a) Antonio is in the jungle, having fled from his compatriots with a young Mbyá Guaraní girl being held in their captivity, plus another he found shortly after, two monkeys, a horse and its foal, and a dog he acquired. He attempts to answer the girls' questions about the Christian creation story, while they tell him their people's origin story, from the Ayub Rapyta. This section is somewhat feverish, crossing into magic realism at times, as Antonio is immersed in the sights and sounds of the jungle; and with the girls' replies to him largely Guaraní words, it's unclear if Antonio's dialogue with them is real or imagined.
Antonio believes he may be protected by the Holy Virgin, who he refers to as the Virgin of the Orange Grove, from a biblical story he tells, and he vowed to the virgin he would take the girls to a grove of oranges he recalls seeing, transplated from Spain, somewhere in the jungle, but is unable to find. In practice, the company is largely protected by Indians, the girls' people, observing the group from a distance.
The light barely moves. But it does move. Is anything still except him? Not even him. His hand also moves, back and forth. And he breathes as he writes. He runs and yells when Kuaru and Tekaka or the girls make off with his sword or dagger, giggling as they escape. Antonio didn't know that monkeys laughed until one day they pelted him with pacará pods. Now he knows it, but barely even notices their laughter, as he understands that the breeze rustling the leaves is faint because the light barely moves. The shadows are often softer here in the jungle, which is dense with shade, though it also lives in the light of the sun, like everything else in this world. Like the she-leopard with the luminous aura he sees each night, circling the hut, licking the faces of Mitakuña and Michi, who curl their tiny bodies between the great cat's paws. He wakes every time with his heart thrashing in his chest, fleet and furious. He opens his eyes. Nothing but the girls asleep. And something like fireflies flitting around them. He knows fear, Antonio does. And the she-jaguar terrifies him. It's the jungle itself baring its teeth, showing its strength, its hunger. Its means of giving death. Just like that, in a flash, like a lightning bolt cast down by God. Maybe God is a she-jaguar. Or the beetle he's just spied inside a flower. Like a precious stone glittering in the fragrance of the blossom's white cup. He doesn't know. But what he does know is that he's surrounded by Indians who are looking after him. Why? What has he done for anyone to look after him? It must be a miracle of the Virgin of the Orange Grove. Or else because he's protecting the girls.
If not initially an easy read, these sections are much the book's high point for me.
1b) during his journey into the jungle, Antonio writes a letter to his aunt, setting out his own story since the time he left her convent, one full of misadventures, and indeed murders with those who cross Antonio's path - this part something of a potted rehash of the real-life character's autiobiography, Historia de la Monja Alférez, Catalina de Erauso, escrita por ella misma. The issues of Antonio/Catalina's gender identity and sexuality are not really addressed in any detail, indeed at time seem rather incidental.
2) a story set some days before strand 1, although converging on it, tells us of Antonio with the Spanish garrison, where he was initially on death row for one of his many misdemeanours (although possibly one of which he is, unusually, innocent), and what led him to first escape death, but then to flee with the girl.
(for reasons that weren't entirely obvious to me, this section also has one soldier reading extract of, the relatively recently published, Don Quixote to another, with, in English, sections from Edith Grossman's famed translation)
Antonio, observing the abuse, mass hangings and burnings of both native Indians but also foot-soldier from his prison cell window comes to a realisation:
He soon began to think that crimes harbored their own direction, each crime its course, depending on who'd committed them. White or Indian. Rich or poor. Leading to the noose and the pyre or to the throne and the treasury. Two men could commit the same crime together: one would end up on the pyre and the other much better off than before, daubed in the drool of adoration. Object of praise and bronze statues. Crowned in gold. The direction of the offense, where it gallops like a sprightly steed, Antonio calculated, is the product of two factors: one, the cradle of the crime, the worldly place occupied by its perpetrator; and two, the might of his enemies.
And this is where I struggled with the book: perhaps the most intriguing thing about La Monja Alférez (The Lieutenant Nun) is the juxtaposition of his transgender/intersex role-modelling with the fact of his personal behaviour (duels, brawls, stabbings etc) and his enthusiastic participation in the violent excesses of colonialism. The novel acknowledges the personal side in the letter to his aunt, although rather as something in Antonio's path, but has him, agains the historical evidence, turning against the abuse of the Guarini people, and thereby finding comfort in his own self:
The house is the palace of the queen of the butterflies, or the hummingbirds. Or both. Everything is colorful. Nothing is still. The breeze stirs the feathers and petals that glimmer and darken and glimmer again. It's a good place to wait for help, Antonio decides, if his fellows should come. Well, his former fellows. Even if they never truly were. He's always been a foreigner among his own. He spent a lifetime concealed behind garments, behind a new name, a new tale. Fleeing the flames. Almost always. When he traveled back to the old world, he no longer hid his true name or his true story. Nor did he know any longer what his true story was. Telling and retelling the one he'd written so the king would recognize his right to a pension, and so he'd look like someone worthy of a pension, disoriented him. He returned to America. Went back to being, yet again, anyone. To flee again, though he no longer needed to. Now, in this abiding, in this jungle, with these girls, these animals, in this state of being with no story and no name, he feels comfortable. He could stay here.
And the convergence of the two strands, when the soldiers come close to tracking down Antonio's party also has elements of wishful eco-revisionism, as the jungle itself overcomes the armed Spaniards.
A worthy inclusion on the list, but with elements that frustrated me.
National Book Prize judges' citation
Told in a breathless, febrile, gripping narration—never less than brilliantly rendered into English by translator Robin Myers—and seamlessly interweaving Basque and Guaraní elements, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s novel is extraordinarily rich. At once gender-, culture-, language-, and consciousness-bending, Cabezón Cámara reconstructs the half-dream, half-nightmare that was the encounter with the New World for its first European “conquerors.” We Are Green and Trembling is a magnificent tour-de-force of imagination and of the endless, hallucinatory possibilities of language.
Booker judges' citation
‘In this fiercely imaginative reworking of colonial history, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara gives voice to the 17th-century figure Antonio de Erauso, who writes from the depths of the South American jungle after fleeing imperial authority. While caring for two Indigenous girls he has freed from enslavement, Antonio becomes both witness to and participant in the brutal machinery of conquest. Written in luminous, wild, lyrical and inventive language, We Are Green and Trembling is at once playful and devastating, tender and enraging. This imaginative novel critiques familiar narratives of colonialism and empire while offering moments of startling beauty and transformation. It is a vivid and audacious story that reclaims history through language itself.’
December 15, 2023
Después de haber leído Las aventuras de la China Iron hace años, necesitaba leer este. Esperaba algo diferente. Esperaba un poco más de literatura queer, de descubrimiento, de experiencias trans. No me esperaba la carta más larga del mundo que nunca va a llegar a destino. No esperaba que las nenas nunca llegaran a sus naranjas prometidas.
Si tengo que describir la novela en una palabra, diría que es presuntuosa. Sobre todo lo es el lenguage que usa. Poético, si. Pero diría que poético y aturdidor. Entre poema y poema me costó entender quién pensaba o hacía, qué hacía y dónde. Sobre todo al principio, todavía no sé qué ocurría, dónde empezaba y dónde terminaba. Leí la novela a los tropezones y a pesar de lo corta que era, no podía creer que estuviese tardando tanto en terminarla.
Puedo apreciar lo valioso del uso de los diferentes dialectos e idiomas dispersos en la narración, el español de la colonia y el de Castilla, el euskera, el guaraní. Me hubiese gustado tener un glosario de guaraní al pie o al final. De no haber buscado todas y cada una de las expresiones en guaraní, esos últimos te quieros hubiesen pasado desapercibidos. El español antiguo tan adecuado de la carta fue una de las cosas que más me gustaron, o que más gustaronme.
Después de leerla puedo reconocer que es una valiosa novela que rescata mitos y leyendas guaraníes comparables al génesis, al popol vu. Me hubiese gustado ver más de eso, más leyendas cobrando vida, quizás.
Si tengo que describir la novela en una palabra, diría que es presuntuosa. Sobre todo lo es el lenguage que usa. Poético, si. Pero diría que poético y aturdidor. Entre poema y poema me costó entender quién pensaba o hacía, qué hacía y dónde. Sobre todo al principio, todavía no sé qué ocurría, dónde empezaba y dónde terminaba. Leí la novela a los tropezones y a pesar de lo corta que era, no podía creer que estuviese tardando tanto en terminarla.
Puedo apreciar lo valioso del uso de los diferentes dialectos e idiomas dispersos en la narración, el español de la colonia y el de Castilla, el euskera, el guaraní. Me hubiese gustado tener un glosario de guaraní al pie o al final. De no haber buscado todas y cada una de las expresiones en guaraní, esos últimos te quieros hubiesen pasado desapercibidos. El español antiguo tan adecuado de la carta fue una de las cosas que más me gustaron, o que más gustaronme.
Después de leerla puedo reconocer que es una valiosa novela que rescata mitos y leyendas guaraníes comparables al génesis, al popol vu. Me hubiese gustado ver más de eso, más leyendas cobrando vida, quizás.
February 25, 2026
I’ve read the two Cabezón translations prior to this. I really enjoyed Slum Virgin and far less so The Adventures of China Iron. This comes somewhere in between.
It was strong in its historical content and compelling in its protagonist. Antonio de Erauso was a Spanish soldier, muleteer, and outlaw, who was assigned female at birth. Erauso fled a convent, took on a new name and gender, and embarked on a strange, violent life of wandering the country.
It’s one of those pieces of literature that might have benefited from being fiction based on fact, rather than a retelling of an actual life. The religious aspects interest me less, and the book could have done with being shorter.
It was strong in its historical content and compelling in its protagonist. Antonio de Erauso was a Spanish soldier, muleteer, and outlaw, who was assigned female at birth. Erauso fled a convent, took on a new name and gender, and embarked on a strange, violent life of wandering the country.
It’s one of those pieces of literature that might have benefited from being fiction based on fact, rather than a retelling of an actual life. The religious aspects interest me less, and the book could have done with being shorter.
February 7, 2025
Me emocioné con el final 🥺
Le pongo 3 ⭐ porque recién a la mitad agarra ritmo. Hasta ese punto yo no venía entendiendo nada, lo leía por leer realmente porque no tenía idea de que corno estaba pasando. A partir de la mitad empecé a entender y lo pude disfrutar, creo también que recién en ese punto me empecé a acostumbrar a la prosa, ya que está escrito imitando un poco el castellano antiguo, cosa que no estoy acostumbrada.
La historia está narrada en 3 tiempos: el presente, el pasado cercano y, además, el personaje principal a lo largo del libro le escribe una carta a su tía contándole toda su historia desde que la dejo en España.
La historia que sucede en el presente es la más linda, con Antonio cuidando a dos niñas en la selva, acompañado de dos monitos, una yegua y su cria y una perrita. Realmente un found family como dirían en tik tok.
Creo que voy a tener que releer este libro, me parece que es de esos que se disfrutan más en las siguientes lecturas.
Le pongo 3 ⭐ porque recién a la mitad agarra ritmo. Hasta ese punto yo no venía entendiendo nada, lo leía por leer realmente porque no tenía idea de que corno estaba pasando. A partir de la mitad empecé a entender y lo pude disfrutar, creo también que recién en ese punto me empecé a acostumbrar a la prosa, ya que está escrito imitando un poco el castellano antiguo, cosa que no estoy acostumbrada.
La historia está narrada en 3 tiempos: el presente, el pasado cercano y, además, el personaje principal a lo largo del libro le escribe una carta a su tía contándole toda su historia desde que la dejo en España.
La historia que sucede en el presente es la más linda, con Antonio cuidando a dos niñas en la selva, acompañado de dos monitos, una yegua y su cria y una perrita. Realmente un found family como dirían en tik tok.
Creo que voy a tener que releer este libro, me parece que es de esos que se disfrutan más en las siguientes lecturas.
December 19, 2024
lo que puedo decir es que esta novela exuda belleza, se le escapa por las páginas por los costados y se desparrama por quien la lee.
me encantan las reescrituras, me encanta que gabriela cabezón cámara y otras tantas versionen y ficcionalicen la historia, que nos la cuenten cambiando el punto de mira. y que para ello utilicen toda la magia posible. me conmueve entera.
me encantan las reescrituras, me encanta que gabriela cabezón cámara y otras tantas versionen y ficcionalicen la historia, que nos la cuenten cambiando el punto de mira. y que para ello utilicen toda la magia posible. me conmueve entera.
March 10, 2026
I just needed this out of my life lol
March 30, 2025
A Gabriela Cabezón Cámara no se le puede negar la coherencia, que su obra posea continuidad a pesar que cambie de época, su estilo permanece, sus constantes no se inmutan, sus temas conectan de un título a otro. Si en Las aventuras de China Iron abordaba la gauchesca, en Las niñas del naranjel se ocupa de la época colonial. Sin embargo da la sensación que en China Iron tenía una hoja de ruta más definida, mientras que en Las niñas todo resulta más reiterativo, académico y deslavazado. Tiene partes dónde la autora se esfuerza en retener el tiempo, detener el relato con todo tipo de detalles, mientras que al final el repaso a la vida de Catalina de Erauso se vuelve atropellado, casi da la sensación que la autora quería acabar cuanto antes con el libro y ocuparse de otros asuntos.
En este segundo título que leo de esta autora hallo de nuevo ese talante de virtuosismo histriónico, todo es muy ideal y cuco, vuelven a aparecer el mito del buen salvaje, complace de forma abundante todos los signos de la época, sólo me ha faltado que encontremos formas de reciclaje eco-sostenibles en el siglo XVII y lleven chapas reivindicativas. Puede que en el discurso institucional todo ello encaje, sea razonable, incluso necesario, pero en literatura se convierte algo cursi y repelente, anodino e insípido. En global ha sido como leer a una especie de Robert Coover versión Disney. O el equivalente literario a la hamburguesa de Kinder.
La autora posee algún talento para el fraseo y la construcción de los párrafos, pero eso da igual porque la olvidaré pronto y supongo que eso está bien.
En este segundo título que leo de esta autora hallo de nuevo ese talante de virtuosismo histriónico, todo es muy ideal y cuco, vuelven a aparecer el mito del buen salvaje, complace de forma abundante todos los signos de la época, sólo me ha faltado que encontremos formas de reciclaje eco-sostenibles en el siglo XVII y lleven chapas reivindicativas. Puede que en el discurso institucional todo ello encaje, sea razonable, incluso necesario, pero en literatura se convierte algo cursi y repelente, anodino e insípido. En global ha sido como leer a una especie de Robert Coover versión Disney. O el equivalente literario a la hamburguesa de Kinder.
La autora posee algún talento para el fraseo y la construcción de los párrafos, pero eso da igual porque la olvidaré pronto y supongo que eso está bien.
March 1, 2026
In the year 1600 at the age of fifteen, Catalina de Erauso fled her aunt’s convent, donned men’s clothing, and emerged as Antonio de Erauso. Erauso’s adventures took him across Spain but he eventually found himself on a boat to the Americas where he joined the Spanish Army. As a conquistador, he led battles against the Indigenous and found himself locked away on more than one occasion after various murders and duels.
In this novel, Cámara sets out to tell the story of Erauso through a mix of narrative and letters. Hiding away in the jungle after escaping death once again, Erauso writes his life story in a letter to his aunt, though is frequently interrupted by the two Indigenous girls he has taken from the military base. Alternate chapters tell the story of how Erauso found himself escaping from the gallows and the aftermath of his escape, told by an omniscient narrator.
I’ll admit I was pretty bored by this for the entirety of the first half (and judging by the reviews I’ve read, I’m not alone in this). It really takes about 100+ pages to get going and become absorbed in the story and the writing.
Though the epistolary framing allows Cámara to fit as much of the real life biography of Erauso as possible, the short length of the inserted letters, the difference in the language used in the letters versus the narrative, and the uneven pacing in the story Erauso is telling his aunt made it feel tedious and like a constant start-stop-start-stop. It was hard to get into the flow of the letter when it was often just a couple of paragraphs at a time.
The language is poetic at times, but I often wished for it to be more playful and less self-serious. The short sentences contributed to the feeling of constantly starting and stopping and the occasional anachronistic word in a text that seemed to be trying very hard to be of its time didn’t help.
All of that to say…I did get sucked in halfway through. The truth of who holds the role of protector and protected is revealed, though I think Cámara still lets him off too easy.
In this novel, Cámara sets out to tell the story of Erauso through a mix of narrative and letters. Hiding away in the jungle after escaping death once again, Erauso writes his life story in a letter to his aunt, though is frequently interrupted by the two Indigenous girls he has taken from the military base. Alternate chapters tell the story of how Erauso found himself escaping from the gallows and the aftermath of his escape, told by an omniscient narrator.
I’ll admit I was pretty bored by this for the entirety of the first half (and judging by the reviews I’ve read, I’m not alone in this). It really takes about 100+ pages to get going and become absorbed in the story and the writing.
Though the epistolary framing allows Cámara to fit as much of the real life biography of Erauso as possible, the short length of the inserted letters, the difference in the language used in the letters versus the narrative, and the uneven pacing in the story Erauso is telling his aunt made it feel tedious and like a constant start-stop-start-stop. It was hard to get into the flow of the letter when it was often just a couple of paragraphs at a time.
The language is poetic at times, but I often wished for it to be more playful and less self-serious. The short sentences contributed to the feeling of constantly starting and stopping and the occasional anachronistic word in a text that seemed to be trying very hard to be of its time didn’t help.
All of that to say…I did get sucked in halfway through. The truth of who holds the role of protector and protected is revealed, though I think Cámara still lets him off too easy.
December 8, 2025
Antonio, who is modeled after a real historical figure of the early modern period, was born a girl and raised in a Spanish convent before running away to live as a man and adventure in the New World. If that's not good enough for you, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara also has him repudiate the colonial project by fleeing into the jungle with some animals and young Indian girls in tow.
We Are Green and Trembling's chapters alternate between, one: his attempt while on the run to write a letter to his aunt back home, the abbess, to explain his life, and two: the chaotic events that led him into the jungle. This narrative form is nothing remarkable and the way Cámara handles it is lackluster: the writing of Antonio's flight and letter is florid and self-important and the best Cámara has come up with in the other material are cookie-cutter greedy conquistadors, perverted priests, and tortured natives. Both disjointed plotlines are littered with shallow musings on Christianity and vulgar dealings in fire, rot, guts, piss, cocks, etc.
I suppose the lyrical attempt to evoke the continuous biocultural ecosystem of the jungle is the best thing on offer. But the way in which that combines with the former material to reach towards a preposterous conclusion demonstrates that Cámara cannot reinterpret a hedonistic materialism which glorifies sensual comfort, disintegration, and death.
New Directions' back copy calls the novel "satirical" -- I'd sooner accept this progressive's pageant of pet notions as self-satire.
Do you think that the World of the Just could exist without trees or animals?
We Are Green and Trembling's chapters alternate between, one: his attempt while on the run to write a letter to his aunt back home, the abbess, to explain his life, and two: the chaotic events that led him into the jungle. This narrative form is nothing remarkable and the way Cámara handles it is lackluster: the writing of Antonio's flight and letter is florid and self-important and the best Cámara has come up with in the other material are cookie-cutter greedy conquistadors, perverted priests, and tortured natives. Both disjointed plotlines are littered with shallow musings on Christianity and vulgar dealings in fire, rot, guts, piss, cocks, etc.
I suppose the lyrical attempt to evoke the continuous biocultural ecosystem of the jungle is the best thing on offer. But the way in which that combines with the former material to reach towards a preposterous conclusion demonstrates that Cámara cannot reinterpret a hedonistic materialism which glorifies sensual comfort, disintegration, and death.
New Directions' back copy calls the novel "satirical" -- I'd sooner accept this progressive's pageant of pet notions as self-satire.
Do you think that the World of the Just could exist without trees or animals?
February 28, 2026
Antonio se salva de la horca y como agradecimiento a la Virgen del naranjel por este milagro, decide rescatar a unas niñas guaraníes y huir con ellas a la selva para entregarlas al lugar donde pertenecen; a ellos se les une un par de monos y un perro.
Durante los días de huída, Antonio escribe sobre lo que ha sido de su vida a su tía quien es una monja que habita en un monasterio de España del cual escapó cuando era novicia, porque ella fue Catalina de Erauso, la misma que en su real autobiografía escribió su peregrinaje hacia la tierra del oro convertida en hombre.
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, toma esta historia y la fusiona con un relato de origen mbyá-guaraní, un pueblo indígena asentado entre una parte de Argentina, Paraguay y Brasil, cuya cosmovisión se centra en la convivencia, pertenencia, identidad, espiritualidad y sentido de comunidad con cada cosa que compone al mundo, habiendo una conexión no jerárquica entre humanos, plantas, animales y espíritus.
Interesante conocer la historia de Antonio/Catalina intercalada con esta huida y la cuota ingenua que daban estas niñas con sus múltiples preguntas con respuestas que suenan a fantasía, pero es religión.
Durante los días de huída, Antonio escribe sobre lo que ha sido de su vida a su tía quien es una monja que habita en un monasterio de España del cual escapó cuando era novicia, porque ella fue Catalina de Erauso, la misma que en su real autobiografía escribió su peregrinaje hacia la tierra del oro convertida en hombre.
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, toma esta historia y la fusiona con un relato de origen mbyá-guaraní, un pueblo indígena asentado entre una parte de Argentina, Paraguay y Brasil, cuya cosmovisión se centra en la convivencia, pertenencia, identidad, espiritualidad y sentido de comunidad con cada cosa que compone al mundo, habiendo una conexión no jerárquica entre humanos, plantas, animales y espíritus.
Interesante conocer la historia de Antonio/Catalina intercalada con esta huida y la cuota ingenua que daban estas niñas con sus múltiples preguntas con respuestas que suenan a fantasía, pero es religión.
Read
March 11, 2026I've got some thirty pages left, but I'm done. Reading shouldn't be this tedious. What a shame to have missed an opportunity like this. The novel had everything going for it, judging by the blurb and description, but by some mysterious force it has turned into a block of text that moves neither forward nor backward. None of the elements that should've worked—colonialism, queerness, transness, the more-than-human—actually do anything to move the narrative in any direction. I'm stumped.
June 1, 2025
¿Cómo supero yo ahora esta historia magistral? 😭 Esta novela es una criatura luminosa y feroz, un canto de vida, de raíces, de sangre. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara nos arrastra a una selva que se abre como las fauces de una bestia oscura y brutal para los extraños, dulce y fértil para los que la hacen suya.
Hay una belleza animal y sagrada en cada frase, en cada respiración entre las ramas, en el temblor de las voces de Antonio, Mitakuña y Michi: un latido antiguo que recuerda que estamos hechos de tierra, de carne, de selva.
Este libro te hechiza, te atraviesa, te destroza y te sobrepasa. Es tan bello, tan sublime, tan puro y tan hiriente que no puedo más que recomendarlo.
Hay una belleza animal y sagrada en cada frase, en cada respiración entre las ramas, en el temblor de las voces de Antonio, Mitakuña y Michi: un latido antiguo que recuerda que estamos hechos de tierra, de carne, de selva.
Este libro te hechiza, te atraviesa, te destroza y te sobrepasa. Es tan bello, tan sublime, tan puro y tan hiriente que no puedo más que recomendarlo.
January 16, 2025
A mí no me ha dicho demasiado y me he aburrido mucho.
January 16, 2026
Amiguitas, esta es la segunda vez que leo esta novela. No la reseñé entonces, porque tenía sentimientos encontrados, y, ahora que la he vuelto a leer, solo puedo reafirmarme en ello. Perdonad la verborrea.
Hay que reconocerle la fuerza, sí, la víscera; pero tengo la sensación de que pierde fuelle por el camino. Es como si la hubiera llamado una señora de la editorial, con prisa y camisilla, diciéndole GABRIELA, HERMANA, NECESITAMOS EL MANUSCRITO PARA MAÑANA O MORIRÁ TU ABUELITA Y WHATSAPP PASARÁ A SER DE PAGO. ¡¿Cómo puedes presentar una novela contemplativa, casi epistolar en doscientas y pico páginas y resolverla en menos de treinta?! Estoy dando piruetas.
La segunda estrella es por el registro. Como usuaria obstinada del anacronismo deliberado, no tengo nada que decir de la imprecisión histórica. Es más, la defiendo. Vosotras y yo, amigas, lo sé. Ahora bien, cuando, en busca de una atmósfera particular, la novela escoge un escenario y un personaje absolutamente geniales, absolutamente barrocos y, sin embargo, hace pasar una sintaxis simplona con demasiados enclíticos por el español áureo de nada más y nada menos que Catalina de Erauso, siendo la prosa barroca tan fértil y deliciosa… Mi mayor decepción. En una obra colorida y sensorial, con un imaginario queer tan poderoso, yo necesitaba ver a Cabezón Cámara romper una lanza por los adjetivos pintorescos y las subordinadas inexplicablemente largas. Y generalizo, pecando de atrevida (y hasta, quizá, de ignorante): ¿qué narrativa es esa, tan carente, anodina, tan poco fantástica con la que, a veces, nos obcecamos? ¿Dónde queda el color, la ebriedad de una sintaxis abigarrada? Una historia así era la oportunidad perfecta y, salvo en algunos pasajes, amigas, no he sabido diferenciar esta novelita de muchas otras, aún recientes.
En fin, ni que yo leyera tanto. No es, en absoluto, una mala novela: solo tenía unas expectativas distintas. Y, como he de ser justa, diré que he apreciado (mucho) ver cómo el amor y el cuidado van transformando a un Antonio avinagrado y hostil. Cómo a la violencia la combate la ternura y todo va diluyéndose en una naturaleza exhuberante.
Os comparto, amiguitas, el bellísimo arranque del primer capítulo y (por fin) me callo ya:
“Soy inocente y tan a imagen y semejanza de Dios como cualquiera, como todos, no obstante haber sido grumete, tendero y soldado, mas antes —antes— niñita en tu falda. “Hija”, “hijita”, llamábasme y aun hoy, creo, ni aun con mis hombros militares ni con mi bigotillo ni con mis callosas manos armadas de espada llamaríasme de modo otro.”
Hay que reconocerle la fuerza, sí, la víscera; pero tengo la sensación de que pierde fuelle por el camino. Es como si la hubiera llamado una señora de la editorial, con prisa y camisilla, diciéndole GABRIELA, HERMANA, NECESITAMOS EL MANUSCRITO PARA MAÑANA O MORIRÁ TU ABUELITA Y WHATSAPP PASARÁ A SER DE PAGO. ¡¿Cómo puedes presentar una novela contemplativa, casi epistolar en doscientas y pico páginas y resolverla en menos de treinta?! Estoy dando piruetas.
La segunda estrella es por el registro. Como usuaria obstinada del anacronismo deliberado, no tengo nada que decir de la imprecisión histórica. Es más, la defiendo. Vosotras y yo, amigas, lo sé. Ahora bien, cuando, en busca de una atmósfera particular, la novela escoge un escenario y un personaje absolutamente geniales, absolutamente barrocos y, sin embargo, hace pasar una sintaxis simplona con demasiados enclíticos por el español áureo de nada más y nada menos que Catalina de Erauso, siendo la prosa barroca tan fértil y deliciosa… Mi mayor decepción. En una obra colorida y sensorial, con un imaginario queer tan poderoso, yo necesitaba ver a Cabezón Cámara romper una lanza por los adjetivos pintorescos y las subordinadas inexplicablemente largas. Y generalizo, pecando de atrevida (y hasta, quizá, de ignorante): ¿qué narrativa es esa, tan carente, anodina, tan poco fantástica con la que, a veces, nos obcecamos? ¿Dónde queda el color, la ebriedad de una sintaxis abigarrada? Una historia así era la oportunidad perfecta y, salvo en algunos pasajes, amigas, no he sabido diferenciar esta novelita de muchas otras, aún recientes.
En fin, ni que yo leyera tanto. No es, en absoluto, una mala novela: solo tenía unas expectativas distintas. Y, como he de ser justa, diré que he apreciado (mucho) ver cómo el amor y el cuidado van transformando a un Antonio avinagrado y hostil. Cómo a la violencia la combate la ternura y todo va diluyéndose en una naturaleza exhuberante.
Os comparto, amiguitas, el bellísimo arranque del primer capítulo y (por fin) me callo ya:
“Soy inocente y tan a imagen y semejanza de Dios como cualquiera, como todos, no obstante haber sido grumete, tendero y soldado, mas antes —antes— niñita en tu falda. “Hija”, “hijita”, llamábasme y aun hoy, creo, ni aun con mis hombros militares ni con mi bigotillo ni con mis callosas manos armadas de espada llamaríasme de modo otro.”
December 13, 2025
Incredible
August 31, 2025
Probably my least favourite of the Cámara I have read, but the most interesting in terms of history, structure and storytelling. It based on the life of Antonio de Erauso who is caring after two girls he has recused from enslavement. Half the story is told in a classic narrative and the other half is de Erauso’s letters to his aunt back in Spain. I really liked the letters but felt as though the rest of the writing fell slightly flat. I was hoping for a ‘You Dreamed of Empires’ vibe but it wasn’t as experimental or exciting. Cámara is an amazing queer storyteller though and so I will be reading everything she writes. She brings such a fresh and new look to old Argentine ideas and culture.
January 21, 2025
La Inés de Suárez Chilena.
El travestismo barroco colonial.
Brigido que nunca ha existido un mundo donde no hayan cuerpos trans.
Dejo citas:
“No es posible andar al modo de las personas; no hay caminos ni líneas rectas, la selva te hace tu arcilla, te forma con forma de sí misma y ya vuelas insecto, ya saltas mono, ya reptas serpiente”
“Que trabajo ser un arbol. Nunca lo había pensado. Hasta las piedras trabajan”
El travestismo barroco colonial.
Brigido que nunca ha existido un mundo donde no hayan cuerpos trans.
Dejo citas:
“No es posible andar al modo de las personas; no hay caminos ni líneas rectas, la selva te hace tu arcilla, te forma con forma de sí misma y ya vuelas insecto, ya saltas mono, ya reptas serpiente”
“Que trabajo ser un arbol. Nunca lo había pensado. Hasta las piedras trabajan”
April 7, 2025
retiro todas mis anteriores quejas con la autora, amo este libro y no se por donde empezar a explicarlo. se siente como la culminación natural de años de escritura, agarrando todas las temáticas presentes en otras obras de la autora y de la misma argentina hechas algo perfectamente trágico e increíble.
December 14, 2025
متن عمیقتری رو توقع داشتم؛ گرچه خوب نوشته شده بود.
March 24, 2025
Dos niñas guaraníes, dos monos, una yegua y un potrillo, una perra rojiza y, guiando ese pintoresco grupo a través de una selva sudamericana, está Antonio o Catalina de Erauso o la Monja Alférez, quien ha prometido a la Virgen del naranjel poner a salvo a esas dos niñas: Michī y Mitãkuña.
Mientras escapan por la selva, Antonio se dedica a escribirle una larguísima carta a su tía en España, relatando su historia desde que huyó de un convento siendo todavía una chica hasta sus aventuras en América como hombre. Y aunque al principio me gustó la dinámica de las dos niñas que lo interrumpen todo el tiempo, pronto el recurso epistolar se hace forzado y le resta verosimilitud a la novela (aunque no sé si la verosimilitud era parte de su apuesta). Y su estructura, sin dejar de ser dinámica, se convierte en un peso que la alarga más de lo necesario.
Salgo convencido de que este libro no es para mí. Pero me quedo con algunas de sus descripciones de la selva, que son maravillosas: “No tenía frente a sí las flores hechas, las tenía sucediendo. En cada pétalo la leche vegetal, hecha pequeñas bolitas coloradas, alargaba brazos para confluir con las otras. Se extendían y se estiraban. Se iban volviendo claras cuanto más se anudaban y se alejaban de la base. Todas vibraban como animalitos felices de rozarse”. Y también me quedo con la sensación de que hubiera funcionado mejor como cuento.
Mientras escapan por la selva, Antonio se dedica a escribirle una larguísima carta a su tía en España, relatando su historia desde que huyó de un convento siendo todavía una chica hasta sus aventuras en América como hombre. Y aunque al principio me gustó la dinámica de las dos niñas que lo interrumpen todo el tiempo, pronto el recurso epistolar se hace forzado y le resta verosimilitud a la novela (aunque no sé si la verosimilitud era parte de su apuesta). Y su estructura, sin dejar de ser dinámica, se convierte en un peso que la alarga más de lo necesario.
Salgo convencido de que este libro no es para mí. Pero me quedo con algunas de sus descripciones de la selva, que son maravillosas: “No tenía frente a sí las flores hechas, las tenía sucediendo. En cada pétalo la leche vegetal, hecha pequeñas bolitas coloradas, alargaba brazos para confluir con las otras. Se extendían y se estiraban. Se iban volviendo claras cuanto más se anudaban y se alejaban de la base. Todas vibraban como animalitos felices de rozarse”. Y también me quedo con la sensación de que hubiera funcionado mejor como cuento.
April 29, 2024
Esta reseña es 2 en 1 porqué leí ambos en una semana y ya quería contarles.
Nunca había leído a Gabriela Cabezón Cámara y siento que llegué un poco tarde a la fiesta pero no había mejor momento que ahora que salió su más reciente novela.
Las aventuras de la China Iron y Las niñas del naranjel exploran mundos narrativos que no son fáciles de adentrar, son selvas llenas de letras que se resisten a ser completamente comprendidas, le piden a su lector que se adentren [así como sus personajes] para que se transformen y formen parte del tejido de la naturaleza.
Mediante cantos, cartas o perspectivas hostiles e inocentes, vemos Argentina en 1600s, en un escenario de violencia, despojos y oscuridad, con destellos de ternura y luz entre las ramas.
Una historia es de una joven que huye y se encuentra con una mujer inglesa con la que emprende un viaje lleno de aventuras y la otra historia es de una monja que al llegar a America decide cambiar de género y termina cuidando a unas niñas dentro de la selva [no me encanta sintetizar así unas historias tan complejas como estas pero sólo es para darles una idea].
Fueron lecturas que me invitaron a fluir y desentender para entender cómo hay lugares donde se desdibujan las líneas de géneros, lenguas, especies y tiempos.
Te los recomiendo si te gustan los libros históricos pero desde una visión única y oscura.
Nunca había leído a Gabriela Cabezón Cámara y siento que llegué un poco tarde a la fiesta pero no había mejor momento que ahora que salió su más reciente novela.
Las aventuras de la China Iron y Las niñas del naranjel exploran mundos narrativos que no son fáciles de adentrar, son selvas llenas de letras que se resisten a ser completamente comprendidas, le piden a su lector que se adentren [así como sus personajes] para que se transformen y formen parte del tejido de la naturaleza.
Mediante cantos, cartas o perspectivas hostiles e inocentes, vemos Argentina en 1600s, en un escenario de violencia, despojos y oscuridad, con destellos de ternura y luz entre las ramas.
Una historia es de una joven que huye y se encuentra con una mujer inglesa con la que emprende un viaje lleno de aventuras y la otra historia es de una monja que al llegar a America decide cambiar de género y termina cuidando a unas niñas dentro de la selva [no me encanta sintetizar así unas historias tan complejas como estas pero sólo es para darles una idea].
Fueron lecturas que me invitaron a fluir y desentender para entender cómo hay lugares donde se desdibujan las líneas de géneros, lenguas, especies y tiempos.
Te los recomiendo si te gustan los libros históricos pero desde una visión única y oscura.
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