Book picks similar to
Cold Tales by Virgilio Piñera
short-stories
cuba
favorites
fiction
The Selected Poems
Federico García Lorca - 1936
Lorca (1898-1937) is admired all over the world for the lyricism, immediacy and clarity of his poetry, as well as for his ability to encompass techniques of the symbolist movement with deeper psychological shadings. But Lorca's poems are, most of all, admired for their beauty. Undercurrents of his major influences--Spanish folk traditions from his native Andalusia and Granada, gypsy ballads, and his friends the surrealists Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel--stream throughout Lorca's work. Poets represented here as translators are as diverse as Stephen Spender, Langston Hughes, Ben Belitt, William Jay Smith, and W.S. Merwin.
Mundo Cruel: Stories
Luis Negrón - 2010
The writing straddles the shifting line between pure, unadorned storytelling and satire, exploring the sometimes hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking nature of survival in a decidedly cruel world.
Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings
Daniil Kharms - 2007
In this brilliant translation by Matvei Yankelevich, English-language readers now have a comprehensive collection of the prose and poetry that secured Kharms s literary reputation a reputation that grew in Russia even as the Soviet establishment worked to suppress it.A master of formally inventive poetry and what today would be called micro-fiction, Kharms built off the legacy of Russian Futurist writers to create a uniquely deadpan style written out of and in spite of the absurdities of life in Stalinist Russia. Featuring the acclaimed novella The Old Woman and darkly humorous short prose sequence Events (Sluchai), Today I Wrote Nothing also includes dozens of short prose pieces, plays, and poems long admired in Russia, but never before available in English. A major contribution for American readers and students of Russian literature and an exciting discovery for fans of contemporary writers as eclectic as George Saunders, John Ashbery, and Martin McDonagh, Today I Wrote Nothing is an invaluable collection for readers of innovative writing everywhere.About the EditorMATVEI YANKELEVICH is also a co-translator of Oberiu: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism (2006). His translation of the Vladimir Mayakovsky's poem "Cloud in Pants" appears in Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and About Mayakovsky. He is the author of a long poem, The Present Work, and his writing has appeared in Fence, Open City, and many other literary journals. He teaches Russian Literature at Hunter College in New York City and edits the Eastern European Poets Series at Ugly Duckling Press in Brooklyn.
Adán Buenosayres
Leopoldo Marechal - 1948
Employing a range of literary styles and a variety of voices, Leopoldo Marechal parodies and celebrates Argentina's most brilliant literary and artistic generation, the martinfierristas of the 1920s, among them Jorge Luis Borges. First published in 1948 during the polarizing reign of Juan Perón, the novel was hailed by Julio Cortázar as an extraordinary event in twentieth-century Argentine literature. Set over the course of three break-neck days, Adam Buenosayres follows the protagonist through an apparent metaphysical awakening, a battle for his soul fought by angels and demons, and a descent through a place resembling a comic version of Dante's hell. Presenting both a breathtaking translation and thorough explanatory notes, Norman Cheadle captures the limitless language of Marechal's original and guides the reader along an unmatched journey through the culture of Buenos Aires. This first-ever English translation brings to light Marechal's masterwork with an introduction outlining the novel's importance in various contexts - Argentine, Latin American, and world literature - and with notes illuminating its literary, cultural, and historical references. A salient feature of the Argentine canon, Adam Buenosayres is both a path-breaking novel and a key text for understanding Argentina's cultural and political history.
Music for Chameleons
Truman Capote - 1980
Taking place in a small Midwestern town in America, it offers chilling insights into the mind of a killer and the obsession of the man bringing him to justice. Also in this volume are six short stories and seven ‘conversational portraits’ including a touching one of Marilyn Monroe, the ‘beautiful child’ and a hilarious one of a dope-smoking cleaning lady doing her rounds in New York.
The Cardboard House
Martín Adán - 1928
The novel presents a series of flashes — scenes, moods, dreams, and weather — as the narrator wanders through Barranco (then an exclusive seaside resort outside Lima). In one stunning passage after another, he skips from reveries of first loves, South Pole explorations, and ocean tides to precise and unashamed notations of class and of race: from an Indian woman "with her hard, shiny, damp head of hair — a mud carving" to a gringo gobbling "synthetic milk, canned meat, hard liquor."As the translator notes, The Cardboard House is as "subversive now as when it was written: Adán's uncompromising poetic vision and the trueness and poetry of his voice constitute a heroic act against cultural colonialism."
Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov - 1903
Considered by many the greatest short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. From characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as “The Huntsman” and the tour de force “A Boring Story,” to his best-known stories such as “The Lady with the Little Dog” and his own personal favorite, “The Student,” Chekhov’s short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov’s prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving modern readers an authentic sense of his style and a true understanding of his greatness.Contains: The death of a clerk --Small fry --The huntsman --The malefactor --Panikhida --Anyuta --Easter night --Vanka --Sleepy --A boring story --Gusev --Peasant women --The fidget --In exile --Ward No. 6 --The black monk --Rothschild's fiddle --The student --Anna on the neck --The house with the mezzanine --The man in a case --Gooseberries --A medical case --The darling --On official business --The lady with the little dog --At Christmastime --In the ravine --The bishop --The fiancée.
The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll
Álvaro Mutis - 1993
His extravagant and hopeless undertakings, his brushes with the law and scrapes with death, and his enduring friendships and unlooked-for love affairs make him a Don Quixote for our day, driven from one place to another by a restless and irregular quest for the absolute. Álvaro Mutis's seven dazzling chronicles of the adventures and misadventures of Maqroll have won him numerous honors and a passionately devoted readership throughout the world. Here for the first time in English all these wonderful stories appear in a single volume in Edith Grossman's prize-winning translation.
The Witness
Juan José Saer - 1983
An inland expedition ends in disaster when the group is attacked by Indians.The Witness explores the relationship between existence and description, foreignness and cultural identity.Juan Jose Saer was born in Argentina in 1937 and is considered one of Argentina's leading writers of the post-Borges generation. He died in 2005.
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
Bruno Schulz - 1937
In the words of Isaac Bashevis Singer, "What he did in his short life was enough to make him one of the most remarkable writers who ever lived." Weaving myth, fantasy, and reality, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, is, to quote Schulz, "an attempt at eliciting the history of a certain family . . . by a search for the mythical sense, the essential core of that history."
Genesis
Eduardo Galeano - 1982
recounted in vivid prose.'"--The New YorkerA unique and epic history, Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy is an outstanding Latin American eye view of the making of the New World. From its first English language publication in 1985 it has been recognized as a classic of political engagement, original research, and literary form.“Memory of Fire is devastating, triumphant... sure to scorch the sensibility of English-language readers.” (New York Times)“An epic work of literary creation... there could be no greater vindication of the wonders of the lands and people of Latin America than Memory of Fire.” (Washington Post)“[Memory of Fire] will reveal to you the meaning of the New World as it was, and of the world as we have it now.” (Boston Globe)“A book as fascinating as the history it relates.... Galeano is a satirist, realist, and historian, and... deserves mention alongside John Dos Passos, Bernard DeVoto, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.” (Los Angeles Times)
The Invention of Morel
Adolfo Bioy Casares - 1940
Set on a mysterious island, Bioy’s novella is a story of suspense and exploration, as well as a wonderfully unlikely romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious.Inspired by Bioy Casares’s fascination with the movie star Louise Brooks, The Invention of Morel has gone on to live a secret life of its own. Greatly admired by Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, and Octavio Paz, the novella helped to usher in Latin American fiction’s now famous postwar boom. As the model for Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Last Year at Marienbad, it also changed the history of film.
Things We Lost in the Fire
Mariana Enríquez - 2016
In these stories, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and Julio Cortázar, three young friends distract themselves with drugs and pain in the midst a government-enforced blackout; a girl with nothing to lose steps into an abandoned house and never comes back out; to protest a viral form of domestic violence, a group of women set themselves on fire. But alongside the black magic and disturbing disappearances, these stories are fueled by compassion for the frightened and the lost, ultimately bringing these characters—mothers and daughters, husbands and wives—into a surprisingly familiar reality. Written in hypnotic prose that gives grace to the grotesque, Things We Lost in the Fire is a powerful exploration of what happens when our darkest desires are left to roam unchecked, and signals the arrival of an astonishing and necessary voice in contemporary fiction.
The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings
Octavio Paz - 1950
In this international classic, Paz has written one of the most enduring and powerful works ever created on Mexico and its people, character, and culture. Compared to Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses for its trenchant analysis, this collection contains his most famous work, "The Labyrinth of Solitude," a beautifully written and deeply felt discourse on Mexico's quest for identity that gives us an unequalled look at the country hidden behind "the mask." Also included are "The Other Mexico," "Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude," "Mexico and the United States," and "The Philanthropic Ogre," all of which develop the themes of the title essay and extend his penetrating commentary to the United States and Latin America.
Cosmicomics
Italo Calvino - 1965
He makes his characters out of mathematical formulae and simple cellular structures. They disport themselves among galaxies, experience the solidification of planets, move from aquatic to terrestrial existence, play games with hydrogen atoms, and even have a love life.During the course of these stories Calvino toys with continuous creation, the transformation of matter, and the expanding and contracting reaches of space and time. He succeeds in relating complex scientific concepts to the ordinary reactions of common humanity.William Weaver's excellent translation won a National Book Award in 1969“Naturally, we were all there," old Qfwfq said, "where else could we have been? Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time either: what use did we have for time, packed in there like sardines?”The distance of the moon --At daybreak --A sign in space --All at one point --Without colors --Games without end --The aquatic uncle --How much shall we bet? --The dinosaurs --The form of space --The light-years --The spiral.