The Obscene Bird of Night


Book Description

This haunting jungle of a novel has been hailed as "a masterpiece" by Luis Bunuel and "one of the great novels not only of Spanish America, but of our time" by Carlos Fuentes. The story of the last member of the aristocratic Azcoitia family, a monstrous mutation protected from the knowledge of his deformity by being surrounded with other freaks as companions, The Obscene Bird of Night is a triumph of imaginative, visionary writing. Its luxuriance, fecundity, horror, and energy will not soon fade from the reader's mind -- Back cover




José Donoso's House of Fiction


Book Description

This text examines the multiple narrative perspectives Donoso presents and traces a transformation in Donoso's works from complex stage performance to political forum.




Curfew


Book Description

Curfew takes place during one twenty-four hour period in January 1985. Matilde Neruda, widow of the Nobel Prize-winning poet, has just passed away, and various factions are rallying to turn the event to their advantage: for Pinochet's junta, it represents a chance to assert political authority, while for the intellectuals who had basked in the Nerudas' light, it is an opportunity to grab the spoils of the estate. Against this backdrop of complex, often conflicting motivations, Donoso weaves a portrait of a society struggling to fashion a daily existence for itself, and of an intelligentsia vainly attempting to salvage the remnants of glory days long gone by. But Curfew is also a story of the tragic love between Judit Torre, an upper-middle-class radical who wants to escape her bitter past; and Mañntilde;ungo Vera, a native son returning after a successful career as a European pop singer. In the zone between documentary-like realism and grotesque absurdity, Joséeacute; Donoso evokes the suffocating atmosphere of a country under dictatorship, and its quietly devastating effect on the actions of those who live there.




The Garden Next Door


Book Description

A Chilean writer named Julio and his wife, Gloria, are at a low point in their lives. Constantly bickering, the pair are beset by worries about money, their writing, and their son (who may or may not be plying the oldest profession in Marrakesh). When Julio's boyhood best friend, now a famous artist, lends the couple his luxurious Madrid apartment for the summer, it is an escape for both - but in particular for Julio, who fantasizes about the garden next door and the erotic life of the lovely young aristocratic woman who inhabits it. But Julio's life - and career - unravel In Madrid: he is rebuffed by a famous literary agent, Nuria Monclus, who detests him and his novel; his son's friend from Marrakesh moves in and causes havoc; and Gloria begins to drink. In the face of pitiless adversity, Julio's talent inexorably begins to fade. The garden next door, however, is also Gloria, who has been doing some creating of her own. It is this twist that transforms Donoso's brilliant satire of the writer's life into something even greater: a carefully crafted and bitteily comic meditation on gardens, deceit, and the nature of a writer's muse.




The Lizard's Tale


Book Description

"At the center of The Lizard's Tale is Antonio Muñoz-Roa, a prominent painter whose circumstances bear a striking resemblance to Donoso's own when he wrote the novel. Hiding in his Barcelona apartment, obsessed with the ruins of his past, Muñoz-Roa relates the story of his flight to the small town of Dors with Luisa, his cousin, lover, and benefactor, after his scandalous defection from the 'Informalist' movement (an ironic reference to a contemporary Catalan art movement and possibly also a veiled allusion to the boom)."--P. [2] of jacket.




Hell Has No Limits


Book Description

A reprint of the powerful novel by Chilean writers, José Donoso.




A House of My Own


Book Description

Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction • From the celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street: "This memoir has the transcendent sweep of a full life.” —Houston Chronicle From Chicago to Mexico, the places Sandra Cisneros has lived have provided inspiration for her now-classic works of fiction and poetry. But a house of her own, a place where she could truly take root, has eluded her. In this jigsaw autobiography, made up of essays and images spanning three decades—and including never-before-published work—Cisneros has come home at last. Written with her trademark lyricism, in these signature pieces the acclaimed author of The House on Mango Street and winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature shares her transformative memories and reveals her artistic and intellectual influences. Poignant, honest, and deeply moving, A House of My Own is an exuberant celebration of a life lived to the fullest, from one of our most beloved writers.




The Remainder


Book Description

Longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize Felipe and Iquela, two young friends in modern day Santiago, live in the legacy of Chile’s dictatorship. Felipe prowls the streets counting dead bodies real and imagined, aspiring to a perfect number that might offer closure. Iquela and Paloma, an old acquaintance from Iquela’s childhood, search for a way to reconcile their fragile lives with their parents’ violent militant past. The body of Paloma’s mother gets lost in transit, sending the three on a pisco-fueled journey up the cordillera as they confront the pain that stretches across generations.




The Last Illusion


Book Description

A kaleidoscopic tale inspired by a legend from the medieval Persian epic "Book of Kings" follows the coming-of-age of a feral Middle Eastern youth in New York City on the eve of the September 11 attacks. By the award-winning author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects. 25,000 first printing.




The Tower of the Antilles


Book Description

PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist: A “superb story collection” about America and Cuba, escape and return, and history and hope (Los Angeles Times). Longlisted for The Story Prize One of Electric Literature’s Best Short Story Collections of the Year In “Superman,” several possible story lines emerge about a 1950s Havana sex-show superstar who disappeared as soon as the revolution triumphed. “North/South” portrays a migrant family trying to cope with separation and the eventual disintegration of blood ties. “The Cola of Oblivion” follows a young woman who returns to Cuba and inadvertently uncorks a history of accommodation and betrayal among the family members who stayed behind during the revolution. And in the title story, an interrogation reveals a series of fantasies about escape and a history of futility. The Cubans in Achy Obejas’ story collection are haunted by islands: the island they fled, the island they’ve created, the island they were taken to or forced from, the island they long for, the island they return to, and the island that can never be home again. “[A] memorable short fiction collection.” —Publishers Weekly “By turns searing and subtly magical . . . Obejas’ plots are ambushing, her characters startling, her metaphors fresh, her humor caustic, and her compassion potent in these intricate and haunting stories of displacement, loss, stoicism, and realization.” —Booklist “Obejas writes with gentleness, without flashy wording or gimmicks, about people trying to figure out where they belong.” —Los Angeles Review of Books




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