Dancing Queen - by Camila Fabbri (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this brutally funny debut novel, the young, award-winning Argentine writer and director Camila Fabbri lays bare the lies a woman tells herself to excuse herself from truly living.

"A story about a break-up and an existential crisis: Is it possible to save oneself from oneself? . . . Dancing Queen portrays instability, what is fleeting and ungraspable, as a treasure that may make life worth living." --Juan Pablo Villalobos, author of I'll Sell You a Dog

Paulina Almada awakes amnesiac beside a wailing teenage girl in a totaled car. In retrospect, she recounts her descent into an existential crisis that makes this near-death experience her redemption. The bitter cynicism or stark lucidity that veils her fear of abandonment has made her so cruel that she risks losing her boyfriend, Felipe, and her only friend, Maite. After Felipe breaks up with her, Paulina and Maite set out on a road trip. "The fake Thelma and Louise, manless runaways without style or courage," she reflects sullenly. Willed and accidental misadventures ensue, including crashing a quinceañera, which threaten to irrevocably alter her experience of the everyday. When we finally witness the collision, it's clear that all bonds, and life itself, are meaningful because they are temporary.

"Who is--what is--Camila Fabbri? A mind-blowing, mind-blown next-door Emily Brontë? A secret language spoken and written to be learned by reading her and shivering? David Lynch's best friend? An alien entity taking Polaroids of what was always there but invisible to us until Fabbri arrived? Who knows? But I'm sure of one thing: It's been a long time since I met someone or something like this, and it's going to be a long time before I meet something or someone like Fabbri again. I can't get over it. I don't want to get over it. Now you try; I dare you." --Rodrigo Fresán, author of Melvill

Review Quotes

"Fabbri writes with the remnants of an innocence she once possessed." --Leila Guerriero, author of The Difficult Ghost

"Camila Fabbri's prose seems to have arrived in one piece from outer space. Her voice defies all domestication." --Leila Guerriero, author of The Difficult Ghost

"Camila Fabbri is a meticulous observer but not a passive one: she doesn't renounce the dream that words can do something, change something, have real effects outside the bounds of the book." --Alejandro Zambra, author of Chilean Poet

"Who is--what is--Camila Fabbri? A mind-blowing, mind-blown next-door Emily Brontë? A secret language spoken and written to be learned by reading her and shivering? David Lynch's best friend? An alien entity taking Polaroids of what was always there but invisible to us? Who knows? But I'm sure of one thing: It's been a long time since I met someone or something like this, and it's going to be a long time before I meet someone or something like Fabbri again. I can't get over it. I don't want to get over it. Now you try; I dare you." --Rodrigo Fresán, author of Melvill

"I see her as a young woman able to get away from herself by tracing circles around her belly button. Vicious circles, Ionesco would say. She makes a classic tradition as fresh as a head of lettuce." --Marta Sanz, author of My Clavicle: And Other Massive Misalignments

"The voice of Camila Fabbri's novel combines violence and tenderness, costumbrismo and a hallucinatory tone, sisterhood and a profound solitude, the appearance of an anaesthetized body and an internal revolt: the voice of Camila Fabbri's novel is that of a stranger, Camus-like, ready to scream at any moment." --Marta Sanz, author of My Clavicle: And Other Massive Misalignments

"A story about a break-up and an existential crisis: Is it possible to save oneself from oneself? Camila Fabbri leads her protagonist on a search for redemption yet does so without deluding herself into thinking that identity or affection are fixed. Dancing Queen portrays instability, what is fleeting and ungraspable, as a treasure that may make life worth living." --Juan Pablo Villalobos, author of I'll Sell You a Dog

"Camila Fabbri works with a distorted material she doesn't seek to straighten but let's grow (. . .) Imagine a glass hit by a stone that hasn't collapsed but shattered, Fabbri's prose is like the splinters in the crystal." --Selva Almada, author of Dead Girls

About the Author

CAMILA FABBRI is an Argentine writer, director, and actress. She is the author of the story collections Los accidentes and Estamos a salvo; the novel Dancing Queen, finalist for the Herralde Prize; and several plays. She was recently included in Granta 155: The Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists. Fabbri premiered her debut feature film, Clara Gets Lost in the Woods, at the 2023 San Sebastián International Film Festival.

ROBIN MYERS is a poet and translator. She won the 2025 National Book Award in Translated Literature for We Are Green and Trembling, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (New Directions). Her poetry collection Centro is forthcoming from Coffee House Press.