Mayra Montero’s latest novel— La tarde que Bobby no bajó a jugar [The afternoon Bobby didn’t come down to play]—was published by Tusquets Editores in May 2024. The book was launched in Puerto Rico, and introduced by fellow author Ana Lydia Vega, at Casa de España on June 12, 2024.

Description: “Two trips to Havana, two love stories, and a chess star.”

On a cold Thursday in January 2008, in a hospital in Reykjavík, Dr. Stoltz placed a bishop in the defeated hand of Bobby Fischer, who was the best chess player in the world, so that, when he pressed the piece, the veins in his arm would swell in order to inject a compassionate dose of morphine. Although, in reality, this narrative begins more than forty years ago, with a Bobby Fischer admired by the whole world, who visits Cuba in 1966 to play a tournament, and intertwines two love stories—two passions lived with a revolution as a backdrop. The love story of Miriam, who at fourteen years old has a brief and intense romance with the chess player, and that of a mysterious Cuban of Polish origin who falls at the feet of the grandmaster’s mother ten years earlier. Two loving passions in two historical moments in Cuba, the one that flourished in the heat of the casinos and the tourism industry commanded by gangsters from Florida, and the one that remained after the Revolution destroyed the capitalist mirage. Mayra Montero masterfully recreates two eras of a city, Havana, that has already disappeared.

Mayra Montero was born in Havana in 1952 and has lived in Puerto Rico for more than thirty years. She is the author of La última noche que pasé contigo (1991) and Púrpura profundo (XXII Sonrisa Vertical Award, 2000), two memorable erotic narratives, as well as the novels Del rojo de su sombra (1993), Tú, la oscuridad (1995), Como un mensajero tuyo (1998), El capitán de los dormidos (2002), Son de almendra (2006), El caballero de San Petersburgo (2014) and La mitad de la noche (2019), which have established her place as one of the most prominent narrators on the Spanish-language literary scene. Her works have been translated in the United States, France, Germany, and Italy, among other countries.

Description translated by Ivette Romero. For the original (in Spanish), see https://www.planetadelibros.com/libro-la-tarde-que-bobby-no-bajo-a-jugar/396322

Also see https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Mayra-Montero/dp/8411074773