A fractured account of family abuse, secrets, and the cost of pursuing the truth.

In the most private spaces, the most intimate betrayals occur. Belen Lopez Peiro places us squarely in the tenderest of times-young teenagehood, in a home about to be ruptured by sexual assault. In this home, for this young woman, your assailant is your uncle, and also a police commissioner. The people who shelter you will reject you: your mother is his sister-in-law, your beloved aunt his wife and your cousin and friend his daughter. And the truth of what happened will depend entirely on you.

Why Did You Come Back Every Summer is a document of uncertainty, self-doubt, and the appearance of progress when there is none. A chorus of voices interrupt and overtake each other; interviews and reports are filed. The truth will be heard but how and by whom? Loyalties will shift and slip. And certain questions have no easy answers. What do you owe to your family? What do they owe you? How far will you go to get yourself back?

About the Author

Belen Lopez Peiro studied journalism and communication sciences in Buenos Aires University and has recently completed an MA in Creative Writing at the Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University. She currently coordinates non-fiction writing workshops with a gender perspective. Why Did You Come Back Every Summer is her debut novel. It received rave reviews, and has become a literary, social and political phenomenon in her country and beyond. In 2021 she published her second book Donde no hago pie (Nowhere to Stand) which narrates the legal process the author went through to bring her abuser to justice.

Maureen Shaughnessy is a writer and translator from Spanish. Her published translations include works by Sara Gallardo, Hebe Uhart, and Nurit Kasztelan. Her translations have been published by Archipelago Books and Cardboard House Press, and featured in The Paris Review, Brick , World Literature Today, LALT, AGNI, WWB and Asymptote. Her forthcoming translations include a novel by Lucia Lijtmaer and microfictions by Leila Sucari. Raised in Oregon, she now lives in Bariloche, Argentina.

Reviews

"Fearless and distinctive, this is vital reading. " -Publishers Weekly

"Employing direct and crude language, Lopez Peiro writes against the system, against the web of silence that tried to keep her quiet, and against herself. (...) A book that becomes a political act that forces us to look in places we would prefer not to."" -Casa America Catalunya

"An exquisite book, a powerful political intervention. And so necessary. "" -Gabriela Cabezon Camara , author of THE ADVENTURES OF CHINA IRON

"The map of what happens to us, finally revealed complete. Indispensable."" -Brigitte Vasallo

"A perfect and precise book that tackles macho violence and makes the picture that supports impunity emotionally palpable." "" -Gabriela Wiener , author of SEXOGRAPHIES and NINE MOONS

"Incredible expressive power. " -La Agenda

"One of the bravest and starkest texts in recent memory." -Infobae

"Those who immerse themselves in the pages of this novel will feel each word like a dagger. The author is explicit: she goes to the bone, writing without holding back. (...) This novel is a cry, a denunciation, but also a way of healing. Belen discovered the possibility of transforming pain and turning her book into an instrument of struggle, containment and support for those who don't dare to make their own denunciation. " -Feminacida

"Lopez Peiro narrates the experience of sexual abuse that she endured while she goes a young girl. But she doesn't do so in the first person. Rather, she does it through parallel voices and police statements which allow her to widen out a tragedy that in no case is singular. It is always plural." -Vogue

"Why Did You Come Back Every Summer marks an inflection point in the chronology of autobiographical fiction." -The Washington Post

"Crude, direct and without embellishment, Peiro's novel has become a literary revolution that has put the wind in the sails of all the women who have been in her position. " -El Independiente

"Avoiding stylistic fanfare and with the directness of speech, the book recounts the inside and outside story from both multiple individual perspectives as well as the legal report. Though it is a book that moves us emotionally, Lopez Peiro never forgets that she is telling a tale of terror and her obligation to report the investigation. " -Revista de Letras

Book Information
ISBN 9781913867805
Author Belen Lopez Peiro
Format Paperback
Page Count 188
Imprint Charco Press
Publisher Charco Press