La Gabel, the literary alias of Karin Dhadamus, is a former attorney, hotel owner and manager, art curator, and the author of Dancing Out of the Dark and A Twist of Tango, two autobiographical novels in style. She holds a BA in International Law from the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.L.), an MA in Latin American International Politics and Economics from The Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., and an MA in Curating Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art from ESEADE, Buenos Aires. Her professional path has taken her through trade counseling, banking, the hotel industry, and the management of her own art gallery.

Karin’s writing is fueled by her passion for life, her travels, her personal love stories, and her restless curiosity. Born in Belgium, where she spent most of her life, she later studied in Bologna, Washington, D.C., and Brazil. A polyglot, she speaks seven languages.

Since 2015, she has called Buenos Aires, Argentina, home, where she lives with her daughter and their four cats: Leoni, Gucci, Dolce, and Gabbana.

Her latest adventure has brought her to the sun-drenched region of Puglia, Southern Italy, where she is restoring Masseria San Pietro, a seventeenth-century farmhouse near the white city of Oria. The project will become a luxury eco-agriturismo, combining understated elegance with sustainability and the simple pleasures of Mediterranean living. The estate will produce its own almonds, figs, citrus fruits and honey, welcoming guests who seek authenticity, beauty and a slower pace of life.

Whether through her books, her hospitality, or the places she creates, Karin believes that the most meaningful journeys are those that allow us to reconnect—with ourselves, with nature, and with one another.

When she is not writing, Karin can often be found cooking, dancing, listening to jazz, reading, or researching Latin American art. Karin is the author of Dancing Out of the Dark. Before moving to Argentina, she also wrote A Twist of Tango, a manuscript currently awaiting editing and publication. Her second completed book, From Istanbul to Seoul, is presently being edited in preparation for publication.

She is currently writing A Thousand Nights in Tango Shoes, a memoir that explores tango, Buenos Aires, and the many life lessons discovered one embrace at a time.

The theme of shoes is not new to her work. Karin’s master’s thesis explored the symbolism of footwear in modern and contemporary Latin American art, a subject that continues to inspire both her writing and her reflections on identity, movement, belonging, and transformation.