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Books

Rodolfo González Alcántara is lord of the dance

Leila Guerriero tells A Simple Story of one gaucho’s electrifying performance of the malambo — an obscure Argentinian dance more arduous than any feat of athletics

9 January 2016

9:00 AM

9 January 2016

9:00 AM

A Simple Story: Dancing for His Life Leila Guerriero, translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead

Pushkin Press, pp.153, £9.99, ISBN: 9781782271598

‘Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough,’ said Gustave Flaubert. He might have been talking about this slim volume, which takes a slimmer subject and inflates it to an epic of noble proportions.

The subject is unpromising. ‘This is the story of a man who took part in a dance contest,’ runs the opening line.

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