Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance

* Shortlisted for the Deutz Medal for Fiction

In tango, there are no wrong turns. But every dance begins with a backward step. This is where Louise and Schmidt’s story begins, with a backward step.

Louise and Schmidt meet in a small town in New Zealand during World War I. When locals are stirred to violence against Schmidt for his German name, he and Louise take refuge in a remote cave overlooking the ocean. There, humming Argentinian songs into her ear, he teaches her the intimate rhythms of the tango—the dance that will bind them forever.

Years later, in her restaurant in Wellington, Rosa, Schmidt’s granddaughter, tells Lionel the tale of her grandfather’s affair with Louise.

And she teaches him to dance.

‘Jones has solved something that’s notoriously difficult: how to write about music so that the words themselves express its character…it’s a wonderful, aching tale.’ — NZ Herald