From a National Book Award finalist—for her memoir American Chica—and the author of the acclaimed novel Cellophane comes this spare, powerful story of sexual obsession and its consequences.

Carlos Bluhm leads the good life in upper-class Lima: he attends social functions with his elegant wife, goes out drinking with his three best friends, has the occasional, fleeting assignation. . . . Until he meets Maria Fernandez, a dancer at a tango bar in a rough part of town. The beautiful sixteen-year-old intoxicates him. An indigenous dark-skinned Peruvian, she represents everything his safe white world does not, and soon he can’t get her out of his mind. They begin a passionate affair, one that will destroy his marriage and shatter the only reality he’s ever known.

Flash forward twenty years: against all odds, Carlos and Maria have remained together. But when Maria finally presses for a formal commitment, feelings long suppressed erupt in a tense endgame that sends both of them hurtling toward a dangerous resolution that will forever alter their lives.

Brilliantly realized, erotic, unsentimental, Lima Nights is a unique love story and a stunning work of fiction that will reverberate long after its final page.

“Spare, unsentimental…. [A] finely tuned human drama.”—Publishers Weekly

"An erotic, catastrophic love story that grows more mysterious by the page, Arana's novel of taboo passion, tragic misperception, and life's hidden dimensions is as shattering as it is seductive."—Booklist, starred review

“Unflinching … compelling…. Intelligent.”—Library Journal

"Arana's prose soars with poetic imagery, evocative description and moving characterization."—Rocky Mountain News