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A writer of Uruguayan origins, Caro De Robertis is the author of The Palace of Eros (Primero Sueño Press/Atria), a retelling of the traditional Greek myth of Psyche and Eros through a queer and feminist lens, and five previous novels. Their books have been translated into 17 languages and have received numerous honors, including two Stonewall Book Awards, Italy's Rhegium Julii Prize, and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, which they were the first openly nonbinary writer to receive. De Robertis is also an award-winning literary translator and a professor at San Francisco State University. They are currently at work on a nonfiction book, So Many Stars: an Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color. They live in Oakland, Calif., with their two children.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
It's a retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Psyche and Eros that recasts Eros, god of desire, as a genderqueer nonbinary lesbian goddess.
On your nightstand now:
Once, my kids counted the books on my nightstand: 58. Currently, the tower is topped by a book I'm excited to dive into, Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías, and a gorgeous novel that recently stole my soul, Alex Espinoza's The Sons of El Rey.
Favorite book when you were a child:
When I was nine, I found Little Women by Louisa May Alcott--or it found me. Looking back, I see it as my first experience with a genuinely feminist text, which can be like water for a thirsty soul. Jo not only wants to be wild and free, but also a writer! When I was 10, and we immigrated to the U.S., my copy of Little Women was one of the treasures I brought with me. I lived in that book, and it helped me live in turn.
Your top five authors:
This hurts! Only five? To focus it down, here are a few contemporary writers whose work is inspiring me today: Angie Cruz, Jaquira Díaz, Julián Delgado Lopera, Louise Erdrich, and Jacqueline Woodson.
Book you've faked reading:
I won't admit it. I've mended my ways, I'm not that person anymore.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Bad Girls by Camila Sosa Villada. This utterly brilliant novel about trans women who live, love, do sex work, make community, and survive against the odds has been transforming the literary landscape in the author's native Argentina, and should be doing the same here in the U.S. The vision, the majestic sentences, the heart and grit, the wildly original approach, the raw honesty and tenderness--there's so much to say about how we need this book.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I don't think I've ever done this. But a cover I've recently adored is that of Justinian Huang's riveting debut novel, The Emperor and the Endless Palace. Its rich, color-saturated design reflects the queer, supremely erotic, riotously entertaining mythological romp within its pages--and had people stopping me in the airport to ask me about the book in my hands.
Book you hid from your parents:
Hear me out: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. At 13, I pulled it off the shelf and just started reading. Soon enough I'd hit sexual passages that stretched my rather sheltered imagination. That naked woman, on all fours in a bowler hat, did things to my queer-but-doesn't-know-it-yet mind that I could not yet articulate. I hid it from my parents even though the copy actually belonged to them.
Book that changed your life:
So very, very many. But to pick one: Loving in the War Years by Cherríe Moraga was the first book by a Latina lesbian I ever read. I was 19. My world exploded open. Suddenly there was more room for me to exist. For those of us whose truths are not sufficiently reflected in dominant society, finding books that speak to our experience with art and power can not only change our lives, but make our lives feel more possible. It's the most fabulous thing.
Favorite line from a book:
One current favorite is the last sentence of Jordy Rosenberg's trailblazing, transcendent, exquisitely written Confessions of the Fox. That novel would surely be a thrilling joy ride for anybody with a heart, but for queer and trans folks its subtext holds a hidden road map to inner freedom and belonging that is so beautiful to me, it's almost blinding, like the sun. I can't quote the sentence here, though. Its power has to be experienced by reading the whole book.
Five books you'll never part with:
I'd part with none! Why would you make me? But I suppose if I were forced to reach for only five in a fire, I might grab Toni Morrison's Beloved, Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Qiu Miaojin's Notes of a Crocodile, the Eknath Easwaran translation of The Bhagavad Gita, Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues... Oh wait, I'm cheating...
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
I love rereading, the way each cycle through a book can sink you deeper. So, to be honest, I feel like I can always return to that experience with the books I connect to most--which is such a gift.