The Penguin Book of Latin American Short Stories

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The twenty-six stories in this collection offer a vast array of imagination, comedy and South and Central American magic as created by its finest writers. Reflecting both the countries from which they originate and the languages in which they were first written, they throw open a window on to the ’dreaming world’ of Latin America and reveal the sensibility within.

Editor Thomas Colchie has brought together a selection of well-known and less familiar writers from Brazil, the Caribbean, Mexico, the River Plate and Chile. Along with the increasingly familiar voices of Manuel Puig, Isabel Allende, Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luís Borges are many writers never previously published in English. Together they convey the powerful mysticism and the cruel realism of this richly diverse continent.

Contents:
One. The River Plate
- The dead man by Horacio Quiroga
- Axolotl by Julio Cortázar
- Waiting for Polidoro by Armonía Somers
- The circular ruins by Jorge Luis Borges
- The dog will have its day by Juan Carlos Onetti
- The idol by Adolfo Bioy Casares
- Relative humidity 95% by Manuel Puig
Two. Chile
- Toad mouth by Isabel Allende
Three. Brazil
- The miracle of the birds by Jorge Amado
- The ex-magician from the Minhota Tavern by Murilo Rubião
- Love by Clarice Lispector
- The psychiatrist by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
- The plagues by Moacyr Scliar
- The third bank of the river by João Guimarães Rosa
- It was a different day when they killed the pig by João Ubaldo Ribeiro
- The corset by Lygia Fagundes Telles
- Lonelyhearts by Rubem Fonseca
- Twice with Helena by Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes
Four. Mexico
- The doll queen by Carlos Fuentes
- Luvina by Juan Rulfo
Five. The Caribbean
- The gift by Rosario Ferré
- Bestial among the flowers by Reinaldo Arenas
- Story-bound by Ana Lydia Vega
- The last voyage of the ghost ship by Gabriel García Márquez
- The phantom of the Essoldo by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
- Journey back to the source by Alejo Carpentier