Kiss of The Spider Woman (novel) - Historical Background

Historical Background

Puig started Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1974 starting with Molina, who was an experiment in imagining a romantic female. From there the rest of the notes sprouted into the novel. At first the only country that would publish the novel was Spain. Upon publication it was included on a list of novels that could not be consumed by the population of Buenos Aires, along with novels such as "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" by Mario Vargas Llosa. Puig feared the publication of the novel would affect his family negatively. Despite this it was entered in the Frankfurt Book Fair. It remained banned until 1983 when the Raúl Alfonsín government took control. The English translation of the book was started even before its official publication in Spanish in 1976. Some of the translation proved problematic for Puig including Molina's speech which he could not get to get the proper sentimental aspects of the voice through. The English translation appeared in 1979. The French translation also proved problematic as the publisher edited out some scenes for their explicit nature. In 1981 "Kiss of the Spider Woman" won the best Latin American novel of the year from Istituto Italo Latino Americano in Italy.