We, the Casertas

Award-winning Venturini (1921–2015) offers a gothic story about Chela, a wealthy and intellectually curious girl growing up through an unruly and unloving childhood on a magnificent Argentinian estate in the 1920s. The years pass, and an adult Chela travels across South America and Europe and back again, having affairs with older men, befriending Pablo Neruda, and falling in with spell-casting aristocrats, but the real journey takes place within, as she lives in a world of the mind, always finding new ways to be entertained by her surroundings. Her character’s trajectory as the novel heads into the 1940s, when her familial estate is appropriated by the Peronist government, illuminates the downfall of the Argentinian ruling class and their last grasp for control in a century marked by the power of the people. Chela, however, is undaunted and embarks upon more travels (including a Sicilian jaunt and a treasure hunt) and more affairs. First published in 1992 and only now translated into English, Venturini’s novel remains relevant through its focus on power struggles and the will of the individual, plus its intriguing look into the occult.