Malena je ime tanga

Almudena Grandes (1960–2021), a Spanish master of erotic and social prose, published Malena is the name of a tango in 1994 – a novel about a girl growing up in the shadows of her family heritage and the taboo of passion. Maria Magdalena, just 12 years old from a poor but proud family in Madrid, receives from her dying grandfather an ancient emerald – a family treasure cursed by love and misfortune.

Named Malena after the tango that inspired her name, she lives in the shadow of her perfect twin sister Beatrice, a flawless beauty that everyone idealizes. Her father, a strict doctor, and her mother, a devoted wife, stifle Malena’s rebelliousness: she begs to be a boy, because she feels out of place in a world where women must be “pure”.

But the emerald is a curse: Malena falls into a vortex of forbidden love for her father, mixing incestuous obsession with adolescent unrest. She meets passionate lovers, such as an elderly writer or a family friend, who draw her into a world of sensuality and secrets. The family disintegrates in hatred and love: Beatrice becomes a rival, her father a tyrant, and her mother a victim. Malena escapes to nightclubs, tangos, and adventures, searching for an identity amidst Francoist repression. The novel ends with her maturing – from a lost girl to a woman who accepts the curse as her strength.