As with his predecessors in the -genre of the strange- Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, Nikolai Gogol, Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka, the apparent eccentricities in Felisberto Hernandez's stories create a coherent system of allusions and correspondences, a system that reaches its summit in masterpieces such as -Las Hortensias- and -La casa inundada-. As Hoffmann, who preceded him, and Cortazar, who followed, Felisberto turned away from the literary trends of his times and departed on his own journey, undertaking the task of redefining the human being and replacing the accepted notion of material reality with what he called -the mystery-: small and deep daily realities that fall outside an ever narrowing focus on the homogenous and utilitarian. A trained musician and composer, Felisberto elaborated his literary compositions as musical structures, based on the relations among notes and phrases. Thus, Felisberto Hernandez's short stories cannot be approached and read as isolated pieces if the reader intends to grasp the complexity lying deep below the surface. In this edition Ana Maria Hernandez -who bears the same name as Felisbertos' second daughter and teaches Advanced Spanish Composition at CUNY- analyzes the gradual development of Felisberto's theory and praxis of composition by commenting on his most representative short stories and emphasizing the intertextuality of the recurring symbols and themes throughout his literary production. This approach transforms this edition in an exceptional basis for Creative Writing and Advanced Spanish Composition courses, exposing students to texts that exerted a noticeable influence upon acclaimed writers such as Julio Cortazar -his biggest fan- Juan Carlos Onetti, and Italo Calvino, and provoked one of the biggest critical blunders by the otherwise sharp critic Emir Rodriguez Monegal."

    His father, however, having fallen foul of the regime, is accused of embezzlement and dies of a stroke. Following her husband's death, his mother flees the country and settles in Madrid. Our hero separates from his wife and now spends much of his time in the company of his Russian neighbor, from whom he discovers the pleasures of reading. The books he reads gradually open his eyes to the incongruity between party slogans and the gray oppressive reality that surrounds him: the office routine; the daily complaints of his colleagues about problems big and small; his own obsessive thoughts which circulate like a broken record. Every day he photographs the spontaneous eruptions of dissent on the streets and witnesses the sad spectacle of young people crowding onto makeshift rafts and leaving the island. Every night he suffers from Kafkaesque nightmares in which he is arrested and tried for unknown crimes. His disappointment and delusion grow until a day comes when he declares his unwillingness to become an informer, and his real troubles begin. 33 Revolutions is a candid and moving story about the disappointments of a generation that believed in the ideals of the Castro Revolution. it is a unique look into the lives of ordinary people in Cuba over the past five decades and a stylish work of fiction about a young man's awakening.

    It is translated from the Spanish by Australian translator Alice Whitmore All My Goodbyes is a novel told in overlapping vignettes, which follow the travels of a young Argentinian woman across Europe (Malaga, Madrid, Heidelberg, Berlin) and back to Argentina (Buenos Aires, Patagonia) as she flees from situation to situation, job to job, and relationship to relationship. Within the complexity of the narrator's situation, a backstory emerges about a brutal murder in Patagonia which she may or may not be implicated in, but whether this is the cause of her flight is never entirely clear - she is driven as much by psychological concerns, her relationship with her father, uncertainty about her identity and purpose in life.The novella is, as the title suggests, a catalogue of goodbyes, the result of a decade-long cycle of self-inflicted alienation which the narrator, despite herself, seems fated to perpetuate. In its structure it recalls the rich Argentinian tradition of Cortazar and Borges; its language is by turns stark and elaborate, brutal in its economy and yet poetic in its imagery.

    But as the Artist wins hearts and egos with his ballads, uncomfortable truths emerge that shake the Kingdom to its core. Part surreal fable and part crime romance, this prize-winning novel from Yuri Herrera questions the price of keeping your integrity in a world ruled by patronage and power.

    Told in the words of one of the most robust and memorable characters in modern fiction, Mixtli-Dark Cloud, Aztec reveals the very depths of Aztec civilization from the peak and feather-banner splendor of the Aztec Capital of Tenochtitlan to the arrival of Hernán Cortes and his conquistadores, and their destruction of the Aztec empire. The story of Mixtli is the story of the Aztecs themselves---a compelling, epic tale of heroic dignity and a colossal civilization's rise and fall.

    Now, with this new tale of psychological suspense, Martínez is poised to expand on the success of The Oxford Murders.The narrator is an up-and-coming young writer who has little in common with Kloster—a literary giant whose disturbing crime novels dominate the bestseller lists. However, they have both, at one time, employed the secretarial services of the alluring Luciana B. Out of the past, Luciana makes a desperate plea to the young writer. She thinks that Kloster is slowly killing off everyone close to her—can he help before her grandmother and younger sister are murdered?While the narrator suspects her misfortunes have driven her mad, Kloster has a powerful motive; and eerie parallels surface between the murders in Kloster’s books and the real-life deaths surrounding Luciana. As the body count multiplies, the question arises: Can words really kill? Fans of both Alfred Hitchcock and Carlos Ruiz Zafón will be thrilled with Martínez’s literary murder mystery.

    Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes his eyes, he can see what no one else can—visions of all that’s yet to come, both beautiful and dangerous. Followed by his protective swarm of bees and living to deliver his adoptive family from threats—both human and those of nature—Simonopio’s purpose in Linares will, in time, be divined.Set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution and the devastating influenza of 1918, The Murmur of Bees captures both the fate of a country in flux and the destiny of one family that has put their love, faith, and future in the unbelievable.

    No one, for that matter, has written with such pristine clarity about the radiating canals of Amsterdam and the cloud-swept landscape of the Netherlands. Who was Nescio? Nescio—Latin for “I don’t know”—was the pen name of J.H.F. Groenloh, the highly successful director of the Holland-Bombay Trading Company and a father of four—someone who knew more than enough about respectable maturity. Only in his spare time and under the cover of a pseudonym, as if commemorating a lost self, did he let himself go, producing over the course of his lifetime a handful of utterly original stories that contain some of the most luminous pages in modern literature. This is the first English translation of Nescio’s stories.Contents:The freeloaderWhen we were titansThe writing on the wallOut along the IJLittle poetFrom an unfinished novelThe valley of obligationsThe endInsula dei

    Englander’s wondrous and much-heralded collection of stories won the 2000 Pen/Malamud Award and was translated into more than a dozen languages. From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, The Ministry of Special Cases casts a powerful spell. In the heart of Argentina’s Dirty War, Kaddish Poznan struggles with a son who won’t accept him; strives for a wife who forever saves him; and spends his nights protecting the good name of a community that denies his existence--and denies a checkered history that only Kaddish holds dear. When the nightmare of the disappeared children brings the Poznan family to its knees, they are thrust into the unyielding corridors of the Ministry of Special Cases, the refuge of last resort. Nathan Englander’s first novel is a timeless story of fathers and sons. In a world turned upside down, where the past and the future, the nature of truth itself, all take shape according to a corrupt government’s whims, one man--one spectacularly hopeless man--fights to overcome his history and his name, and, if for only once in his life, to put things right. Here again are all the marvelous qualities for which Englander’s first book was immediately beloved: his exuberant wit and invention, his cosmic sense of the absurd, his genius for balancing joyfulness and despair. Through the devastation of a single family, Englander captures, indelibly, the grief of a nation. The Ministry of Special Cases, like Englander’s stories before it, is a celebration of our humanity, in all its weakness, and--despite that--hope.

    Liverpool Football Club had never won the FA Cup. Fifteen seasons later, Liverpool Football Club had won three League titles, two FA Cups and the UEFA Cup. Liverpool Football Club had become the most consistently successful team in England. And the most passionately supported club. Their manager was revered as a god. Destined for immortality. Their manager was Bill Shankly. His job was his life. His life was football. His football a form of socialism. Bill Shankly inspired people. Bill Shankly transformed people. The players and the supporters.His legacy would reveberate through the ages.In 1974, Liverpool Football Club and Bill Shankly stood on the verge of even greater success. In England and in Europe. But in 1974, Bill Shankly shocked Liverpool and football. Bill Shankly resigned. Bill Shankly retired.Red or Dead is the story of the rise of Liverpool Football Club and Bill Shankly. And the story of the retirement of Bill Shankly. Of one man and his work. And of the man after that work. A man in two halves. Home and away. Red or dead.

    Their bond forms instantly.Upon their first meeting, after Makino’s concert in Tokyo, they begin a conversation that will go on for years, with long spells of silence broken by powerful moments of connection. She’s drawn by Makino’s tender music and his sensitivity, and he is intrigued by Yoko’s refinement and intellect. But neither knows enough about love to see it blooming nor has the confidence to make the first move. Will their connection endure, weaving them back together like instruments in a symphony, or will fate lead them apart?Blending the harmonies of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes and the sensuality of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love, At the End of the Matinee is an enchanting and thought-provoking love story.

    Today we focus less on the Roman Republic than on the empire that took its place. Depending on who's doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action or a dire warming of imminent collapse.The esteemed editor and author Cullen Murphy ventures past the pundits' rhetoric to draw nuanced lessons about how America might avoid Rome's demise. Working on a canvas that extends far beyond the issue of an overstretched military, Murphy reveals a wide array of similarities between the two empires: the blinkered, insular culture of our capitals; the debilitating effect of venality in public life; the paradoxical issue of borders; and the weakening of the body politic though various forms of privatization. He persuasively argues that we most resemble Rome in the burgeoning corruption of our government and in our arrogant ignorance of the world outside -- two things that are in our power to change.In lively, richly detailed historical stories based on the latest scholarship, the ancient world leaps to life and casts our own contemporary world in a provocative new light.

    In his parents' house, he finds a cache of documents-articles, maps, photographs-and unwittingly begins to unearth his father's obsession with the disappearance of a local man. Suddenly he comes face-to-face with the ghosts of Argentina's dark political past and with the long-hidden memories of his family's underground resistance against an oppressive military regime. As the fragments of the narrator's investigation fall into place-revealing not only a part of his father's life he had tried to forget but also the legacy of an entire generation- My Fathers' Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain tells a completely original story of family and remembrance. It is an audacious accomplishment by an internationally acclaimed voice poised to garner equal acclaim in America.

    In a brilliant translation by Margaret Sayers Peyden, this remarkable new look at the Book of Genesis will appeal to readers of the novels of Isabel Allende, Anne Rice’s Jesus Chronicles, and to all lovers of great imaginative literature.

    It tells the story, in the form of a surreal diary, of a lonely, syphilitic French soldier, who—after too many brothels and disappointments—returns from Africa longing for a world with more elegance. He promptly falls in love with a goat, and recalls the time, after a childhood illness, when his hair fell out and grew back orange—a phenomenon his doctor attributed to the cultivation of carrots in a neighboring town. Disturbing, provocative, and mesmerizing, On Elegance While Sleeping charts the decline of a man unraveling due to his own oversensitivity—and drifting closer and closer to committing a murder.from On Elegance While Sleeping:“I was born in Bougival. The Seine flowed through our village. Fleeing from Paris. Its dark green waters dragged in the grime from that happy city. As the river crossed our town, it jammed the millwheel with the shy bodies of drowning victims hidden beneath its surface. Their trip ended with a final shove. They didn’t drain easily through the sluice gates as the water passed under the mill and so it happened, occasionally, that one of their arms would go through without them, reaching into the air in a gesture of help. I fished out a number of these bodies as a child. Like the mailman in town who was famous for bringing news of a death, I was known for discovering the most cadavers. It gave me a certain aura of fame among my comrades, and I prided myself on the distinction. I threatened the other children my age that I was going to find them too, the day they drowned.”