"Kiss of the Spider Woman" by Manuel Puig

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Country: Argentina
Written in: 1976
Pages: 280

Starting as an experimental study of a romantic female character, Manuel Puig elaborated with streams of consciousness and unspecified dialogue to create this untraditional novel. Fast paced and challenging social, sexual and literature norms, it's seen as his most successful work, having been adapted into multiple films and plays.

Here's and excerpt from an excellent review on Medium:
One of the major ways in which literature has made its presence felt is as a tool of resistance. Manuel Puig’s novel The Kiss of the Spider Woman is such a battle waged through words, critiquing authoritative institutions, exploring the quest for freedom, and telling human stories of rebellion, love, and loss.
The novel was published in 1976 and is written mainly as dialogues between its dual protagonists — Luis Alberto Molina and Valentin Arregui Paz — detained in a Buenos Aires prison. Valentin is a Marxist rebel who is in jail for waging a political struggle against the government. Molina, who identifies as a woman and homosexual, is imprisoned for the sexual corruption of minors. They are cellmates, who go from strangers to friends and more. One might think that a story that is limited only to one location and written as dialogues between two people might be monotonous. But this is where Puig’s genius lies. Although the physical setting is confined, the reader can transcend that dingy cell, along with the characters, through the sole power of storytelling.

*****
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