Why Did You Come Back Every Summer

Belén López Peiró studied journalism and communication sciences in Buenos Aires University and has recently completed an MA in Creative Writing at the Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University. She currently coordinates non-fiction writing workshops with a gender perspective. Why Did You Come Back Every Summer is her debut novel. It received rave reviews, and has become a literary, social and political phenomenon in her country and beyond. In 2021 she published her second book Donde no hago pie (Nowhere to Stand) which narrates the legal process the author went through to bring her abuser to justice.Maureen Shaughnessy is a writer and translator from Spanish. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review , Brick , AGNI and Asymptote . In 2023, her translation of Belén López Peiró’s Why Did You Come Back Every Summer received an English PEN Translates Award. She lives in Bariloche, Argentina.

PEN Translates Award (Award)"Fearless and distinctive, this is vital reading. " —Publishers Weekly"Employing direct and crude language, López Peiró writes against the system, against the web of silence that tried to keep her quiet, and against herself. (…) A book that becomes a political act that forces us to look in places we would prefer not to." —Casa America Catalunya"An exquisite book, a powerful political intervention. And so necessary. " —Gabriela Cabezón Cámara , author of THE ADVENTURES OF CHINA IRON "The map of what happens to us, finally revealed complete. Indispensable." —Brigitte Vasallo"A perfect and precise book that tackles macho violence and makes the picture that supports impunity emotionally palpable.” " —Gabriela Wiener , author of SEXOGRAPHIES and NINE MOONS "Incredible expressive power. " —La Agenda"Those who immerse themselves in the pages of this novel will feel each word like a dagger. The author is explicit: she goes to the bone, writing without holding back. (...) This novel is a cry, a denunciation, but also a way of healing. Belén discovered the possibility of transforming pain and turning her book into an instrument of struggle, containment and support for those who don’t dare to make their own denunciation. " —Feminacida"López Peiró narrates the experience of sexual abuse that she endured while she goes a young girl. But she doesn’t do so in the first person. Rather, she does it through parallel voices and police statements which allow her to widen out a tragedy that in no case is singular. It is always plural." —Vogue"Why Did You Come Back Every Summer marks an inflection point in the chronology of autobiographical fiction." —The Washington Post"Crude, direct and without embellishment, Peiró’s novel has become a literary revolution that has put the wind in the sails of all the women who have been in her position. " —El Independiente"One of the bravest and starkest texts in recent memory." —Infobae"Avoiding stylistic fanfare and with the directness of speech, the book recounts the inside and outside story from both multiple individual perspectives as well as the legal report. Though it is a book that moves us emotionally, López Peiró never forgets that she is telling a tale of terror and her obligation to report the investigation. " —Revista de Letras