The Adventures of China Iron

READING GROUP Reading Around the World: A is for Argentina

Wednesday 9th October 2024 at 6:15pm

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Our Reading Around the World theme is ready to start going round the alphabet again. Last time for our A read, we visited Australia and this time we will head to Argentina.

Gabriela Cabezon Camara’s novel The Adventures of China Iron was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2020.

It is 1872 and we are in the Pampas region of Argentina. China is a young woman eking out an existence in a remote gaucho encampment.

After her no-good husband is conscripted into the army, China bolts for freedom, setting off on a wagon journey through the pampas in the company of her new-found friend Liz, a settler from Scotland. While Liz provides China with a sentimental education and schools her in the nefarious ways of the British Empire, their eyes are opened to the wonders of Argentina’s richly diverse flora and fauna, cultures and languages, as well as to the ruthless violence involved in nation-building. This subversive retelling of Argentina’s foundational gaucho epic Martín Fierro is a celebration of the colour and movement of the living world, the open road, love and sex, and the dream of lasting freedom.

With humour and sophistication, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara has created a joyful, hallucinatory novel that is also an incisive critique of national myths.

If you would like to join our review discussion to share thoughts on this book, please contact us to book in. The book is available to reserve from our bookshop HERE.

As a reminder, our Reading Group sessions tend to reach full attendance capacity, so booking in beforehand is essential.