Queer Fiction Reading Group

Welcome to our Queer Fiction Reading Group!

This is an inclusive reading group open to anyone to come together to read and discuss LGBTQIA+ literature, with titles handpicked by Sanna. Through a queer lens we’ll explore everything from overlooked queer classics to groundbreaking works of contemporary literary fiction.

In May we are reading a rediscovered queer classic: Pedro Lemebel's 2001 novel My Tender Matador. This is a blazingly beautiful and oddball romance between an ageing trans woman and a young revolutionary by a Latin American icon. Written in lushly imaginative prose that blends the sordid and the profound, the romantic and the militant, My Tender Matador is a transgressive queer classic of desire and revolution.

Spring,1986. Santiago’s streets are aflame with protests against the dictator Augusto Pinochet. From her lavishly decorated hovel, the Queen of the Corner embroiders linen for the wealthy, dreams of romance and listens to boleros to drown out the rioting and gunshots. When handsome young macho Carlos waltzes into her life, the ageing queer swiftly agrees to help with his clandestine activities. As a strange connection blooms, their fates careen towards that of the dictator himself.

"One of the great novels of the past half century." - Garth Greenwell

"It’s a crime that Lemebel is so little known in the English-speaking world. This is one of the great novels of the past half century." - The New York Times

"Astute, grimy, raucous and tender. It’s a love story, a political memoir, a defiant act of speculative fiction. Much like the author, it’s sui generis." - The Guardian