The Vintage book of Latin American stories

Review by Booklist Review

Short stories have always played an important role in Latin American literary history as provocative little mirrors reflecting important cultural traits distinctive to Latin America. The form is widely practiced by Latin American writers, who often have devoted their entire careers to it, and the form is greatly appreciated by critics and the reading public alike. Most critics, Latin American and otherwise, have a special metaphor to explain the difference between the novel and the short story, and in esteemed writer Carlos Fuentes' introduction to this vital gathering of contemporary examples of the Latin American short story, he presents his this way: "The novel is an ocean liner. The short story, a sailboat hugging the coast." One of the most potent of the featured "sailboats" here is Uruguayan Juan Carlos Onetti's "Hell Most Feared," in which a man is cruelly sent a series of salacious photographs by his ex-wife and ends up killing himself. But other masterpieces appear in this anthology as well. ^-Brad Hooper

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Library Journal Review

From the legendary Jorge Luis Borges and the unique Filisberto Hern ndez to such contemporaries as Angeles Mastretta, Rodrigo Fres n, Antonio L"pez Ortega, and Gabriel Garc!a M rquez, Latin American short story writers have developed a style without limits, defying categorization or a neatly defined history. With these 39 selections (all previously published and all by different authors), editors Fuentes (The Years with Laura D!az) and Ortega (Hispanic studies, Brown Univ.) offer a collection dating from the 1950s to the present. The authors, from 11 Latin American nations (Mexico is represented by 11), include 28 who are living and six women. Their work is at times powerful, engaging, and unsettling, and all are examples of a literary tradition unbound by nation, ethnicity, gender, or generation. Most of the contributors work in other genres, so this volume will introduce many of them as short story authors. Recommended for all collections with an emphasis on Latin America or contemporary literature.DBoyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., AL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A solid collection of 39 stories covering an approximate half-century’s worth of fiction variously illustrative of the conflicting principles (cited in Fuentes’s prefatory essay “The Storyteller”) of “immediate effect” espoused by Argentinean Julio Cortázar and “interrelated narrative constellations” as practiced by his countryman Jorge Luis Borges. These great exemplars, Gabriel García Márquez, and João Guimarães Rosa are all represented by often-anthologized tales—but there are numerous choice surprises here (including the Dostoevskyan “Hell Most feared,” by Uruguay’s underrated Juan Carlos Onetti, Argentinean Nelida Pinon’s hair-raising “House of Passion,” and—an interesting closing story—Mexican Pablo Soler Frost’s parabolic, and quite Borgesian, “Clamour”). There are relatively few overtly political stories (Colombian Policarpo Varon’s “The Feast” is notable); in fact, many of the best pieces here offer imaginative treatments of familiar family conflicts (especially Brazilian Moacyr Scliar’s terse, brilliant “Van Gogh’s Ear” and Mexican Sergio Pitol’s richly imagined “Bukhara Nocturne”). Oddly, there’s nothing from such modern masters as Mario Benedetti and Augusto Monterroso—not to mention Mario Vargas llosa, and Carlos Fuentes himself. Still, a very satisfying selection—and, at $14, a tremendous bargain.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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