Translated by Sonia Soto
This classic erotic novel burst on to the literary scene in the early 1990s. Set in Madrid, The Ages of Lulu is an international sensation selling over one million copies. It has been translated into twenty-one languages.
andThe Ages of Lulu
‘This first-person narrative follows the modern sexual exploits of Lulu, beginning with her teenage sexual initiation with her brother’s older friend Pablo and continuing up to her mid-thirties. Lulu, whose experiences seem to come from the pen of the Marquis de Sade, is totally obsessed and dominated by Pablo. Despite Pablo’s compulsive involvement with young girls, they marry and have a daughter named Ines. Lulu seeks her own sexual gratification, which involves transvestites, prostitution, sodomy, and sadomasochism.’
‘Set in Madrid, this luridly inventive first novel strives to shock…The story follows the sexual awakening of narrator Lulu, seduced at age fifteen by an old family friend, Pablo, who poses as her guardian and then as her father, and who ultimately marries her. Echoes of Sade and The Story of O abound as Lulu has sex with her schoolmistress; enjoys a threesome with Pablo and a transvestite; obsessively beds homosexual men; is blindfolded, tied down and gang-raped; and then is raped by her brother Marcelo.’
‘The Ages of Lulu is not pornography. Grandes can write and in terms of both narrative and style she never takes the soft option.’
‘The writing is first rate. Dazzling but controlled.’
‘Intensely erotic…a powerful essay into the darker side of female sexuality.’
