Santa Evita

Santa Evita is a 1995 novel by the Argentine writer Tomás Eloy Martínez. In a blend of fact and fiction, the novel focuses on the Argentine first lady Eva Perón, and tracks her embalmed corpse after her death from cancer at age 33. The book became a bestseller in Argentina and has been widely translated. Worldwide, it estimated to have sold 10 million copies, which makes it one of the best-selling books of all time.

Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times wrote that since Eva Perón's life seems perfectly suited for the author's "hallucinatory brand of fiction", "it's a pity the novel isn't better. Although Mr. Martinez's narrative is enlivened by some magical and highly perverse set pieces, though it possesses moments that genuinely illuminate the bizarre intersection of history, gossip and legend, the novel as a whole feels leaden and earthbound. In the end, it gives the reader neither a visceral sense of Evita's life nor an understanding of the powerful hold she has exerted on her country's imagination."