The year is 1911 when Keyle, a Jewish prostitute, meets the love of her life, Yarme, an ex-convict. The young couple dreams of escaping the misery of the Warsaw ghetto, where they live under the constant threat of pogroms, so when Max, an old acquaintance, offers them a chance to participate in his lucrative business dealings in South America, they don't hesitate for a moment. But Max is also attracted to Yarme, and a fateful love triangle emerges that will torment Keyle both in the dark streets of the ghetto and on the avenues of a major American city. In this brilliant novel, previously unpublished in Spanish, Singer portrays, with the mastery of Dickens or Dostoevsky, the underworld of the Jewish community, populating it with a rich cast of unique characters with whom he creates a vivid portrait of an entire society and an era.