Compared to Conrad, Nabokov, and Beckett by Octavio Paz, Argentine-born Hector Bianciotti is one of the leading literary figures in his adopted homeland of France. , his first novel to be translated into English, is the fictionalized story of Bianciotti's youth among poor immigrant peasants in rural Argentina during the late years of the Perón regime, and a moving and sensitive portrayal of a boy's discovery of his own homosexuality.