People in the Room

Born in 1905 to Norwegian parents in Buenos Aires, Norah Lange was a key figure in the Argentine avant-garde of the early to mid-twentieth century. Though she began her career writing poetry, her first major success came in 1937 with her memoir Notes from Childhood, followed by the companion memoir Before They Die, and the novels People in the Room and The Two Portraits. She contributed to the magazines Proa and Martín Fierro, and was a friend to figures such as Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, and Federico García Lorca. From her teenage years, when her family home became the site of many literary gatherings, Norah was at the heart of Buenos Aires’ literary scene. She travelled widely alone and with her husband, always returning to Buenos Aires, where she continued to write and host literary gatherings. She died in 1972.

`Deathly scenes from a wax museum come to life, in a closed, feminine world.' Cesar Aira`Lange breaks the canon that was suffocating women writers at the beginning of the twentieth century.' Delfina Muschietti`Only the dominant machismo of her era meant that Norah Lange was usually noted more for her Norwegian beauty than for her stature as a great writer. In People in the Room, Lange's intensity and clarity are reminiscent of Virginia Woolf's finest moments in Mrs Dalloway.' El Cultural`Hallucinatory and unsettling, the prose vibrates like a high-tension wire . . . the brilliance of the language, and the shifting perspectives transform what at first seems banal into something mesmerising and tragic . . . a picture of suffocating isolation and voyeurism, Hitchcock without a murder.' Lee Langley, The Spectator`A beautiful and mesmerizing modernist experiment . . . The writing is crisp and direct, in stark contrast to the intricate psychological darkness the narrator inhabits, and it leaves the reader questioning every detail. Unsettling and masterful, this novel should entice fans of literary giants like Virginia Woolf and Clarice Lispector.' Kirkus Reviews`Intimate and vital ... this is an exquisite novel, full of light, shadows, and profound revelations.' Samanta Schweblin, author of Fever Dream`With her singular, powerful voice and her radical turnings of the screw of detective fiction, Lange joins a wave of classic women writers including Clarice Lispector and Leonora Carrington whose rediscovery has altered the terrain of Latin American literature.' Carlos Labbe, author of Loquela`People in the Room brings to mind the alluring uncertainty of Shirley Jackson's Hangsaman, the imaginative intensity of adolescence transformed into masterful fiction.' Idra Novey, author of Ways to Disappear`Female experience in all its isolate weirdness as narrated by a voyeuristic woman with a sensuous sensibility. I want to trust this woman but I don't, which makes People in the Room all the scarier.' Christine Schutt