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Archipelago Books

Milongas

Milongas

by Edgardo Cozarinsky, translated from the Spanish by Valerie Miles

Regular price $18.00
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From its origins in the slum yard bars of Buenos Aires, Cozarinsky moves us through the rich and varied culture of tango, circling the globe to hidden milongas tucked away in the crypt of a London Church, a café in Krakow, the quays of the Seine, to the Red Square of Moscow. At neighborhood dance halls vibrant and alive in the early hours of the morning, where young and old, foreign and native, novice and master come together in a tradition that traverses borders, demographics, and social mores, "it is impossible to distinguish the dance from the dancer." A filmmaker as well as a celebrated writer, Cozarinsky opens a window into the timeless dance, celebrating its traditions, its evolution, and the individuals who give it life.

Additional Book Information

Series: Archipelago Books
ISBN: 9781953861108
Pages: 144
Publication Date:

Praise

Through wry anecdote and masterful observation, Argentine writer and film director Cozarinsky unspools the history of tango and its cultural influence across the globe . . . With the companionable tenor of a humorous, well-informed raconteur, he traces tango dancing’s rise . . . These immersive snapshots are tantalizing.
Publishers Weekly

Cozarinsky boils the complex and often contradictory history of the dance down to its discrete and essential germs, whose sparks linger in the imagination on account of neither their perceived historical significance nor their verifiable objectivity but their ability to engender delight in their retelling . . . [He] sketches a history of the milonga centered on passions, intrigues, and oddities . . . A well-researched and deftly written catalogue of memories and primary source accounts.
—Jenny Wu, Full Stop

Argentine writer and filmmaker Edgardo Cozarinsky traces [tango's] fascinating journey through time and the seedy brothels and rough Argentine and European bars where the dance could be quite mannered or could spark with theatrical violence . . . Cozarinsky takes us through the ebbs and flows of the popularity of the tango, and also through a number of its evolutionary adaptive speciations . . . It would be very interesting to know what Cozarinsky thinks of the future of the tango now.
—Susan Smith Nash, World Literature Today

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