Ursula is dissatisfied. Too ugly, too hungry, too alone – her life is not going the way she would like it to be. The sister is prettier, the neighbor happier, and who can go on an eternal vegetable soup diet? The noir plot sets off one night when Ursula receives a call from someone informing her that her husband has been kidnapped. What husband?, she thinks when she hangs up. She is not the right Ursula Lopez the clumsy kidnapper needed to reach. Being curious, she decides to meet the kidnapper, an inept and naïve negotiator. Ursula is the least indicated woman he could cross paths with. And so, the kidnappers’ plan suffers with ridiculous consequences while her relationship with German (the kidnapper) will move from empathy to a silent seduction leaving in evidence the complex personality of the leading character. Ursula, the novel’s splendid anti-heroine, represents a subversion of dominant feminine aesthetics- determined to overcome any challenge, inside or outside the law, revulsive, contradictory and ungraspable. She discovers her criminal talent, which leads her on an absurdly wonderful adventure

Rosende reveals her capacity to create atmospheres via a wide register of sensations and emotions, mixing a noir plot with the loneliness of an overweight, unmarried (read wrong) woman, incompetent criminals and a Montevideo that is so dirty it smells bad.

 

192 pages – Original language: Spanish (Estuario Editora, Montevideo, 2017); Rights Sold: Spanish/Spain (Alrevés, 2024), French (Quidam Editions, 2022), Italian (S.E.M., 2021), German (Unionsverlag, 2020), Spanish/Audio (Storytel, 2020).