9780195095906

The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories Edited by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria When Latin American writers burst onto the world literary scene in the now famous "Boom" of the sixties, it seemed as if an entire literature had invented itself over night out of thin air. Not only was the writing extraordinary but its sudden and spectacular appearance itself seemed magical. In fact, Latin American literature has a long and rich tradition that reaches back to the Colonial period and is filled with remarkable writers too little known in the English-speaking world. The short story has been a central part of this tradition, from Fray Bartolome de las Casas' narrative protests against the Spanish Conquistadors' abuses of Indians, to the world renowned Ficciones of Jorge Luis Borges, to the contemporary works of such masters as Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rosario Ferre, and others. Now, in The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories , editor Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria brings together fifty-three stories that span the history of Latin American literature and represent the most dazzling achievements in the form. In his fascinating introduction, Gonzalez Echevarria traces the evolution of the short story in Latin American literature, explaining why the genre has flourished there with such brilliance, and illuminating the various cultural and literary tensions that resolve themselves in "magical realism." The stories themselves exhibit all the inventiveness, the luxuriousness of language, the wild metaphoric leaps and uncanny conjunctions of the ordinary with the fantastic that have given the Latin American short story its distinctive and unforgettable flavor: From the Joycean subtlety of Machado de Assis's "Midnight Mass," to the brutal parable of Julio Ramon Ribeyro's "Featherless Buzzards," to the startling disorientation of Alejo Carpentier's "Journey Back to the Source," (which is told backwards, because a sorcerer has waved his wand and made time flow in reverse), to the haunting reveries of Maria Luisa Bombal's "The Tree." Readers familiar with only the most popular Latin American writers will be delighted to discover many exciting new voices here, including Catalina de Erauso, Ricardo Palma, Rubin Dario, Augusto Roa Bastos, Christina Peri Rossi, along with Borges, Garcia Marquez, Fuentes, Cortazar, Vargas Llosa, and many others. Gonzalez Echevarria also provides brief and extremely helpful headnotes for the each selection, discussing the author's influences, major works, and central themes. Short story lovers will find a wealth of satisfactions here, in terrains both familiar and uncharted. But the unique strength of The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories is that it allows us to see the connections between writers from Peru to Puerto Rico and from the sixteenth century to the present--and thus to view in a single, unprecedented volume one of the most diverse and fertile literary landscapes in the world.

Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria is Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literatures, Yale University. He is the author of Myth and Archive: A Theory of Latin American Narrative and coeditor of theCambridge History of Latin American Literature.

Preface

xi

Introduction

3

(20)

PART I THE COLONIAL PERIOD

23

(34)

FRAY RAMON PANE

"How the Men Were Parted from the Women"

25

(3)

POPOL VUH

"A Maiden's Story"

28

(3)

FELIPE GUAMAN POMA DE AYALA

"Tocay Capac, The First Inca"

31

(3)

FRAY BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS

"Plague of Ants"

34

(5)

GARCILASO DE LA VEGA, EL INCA

"The Story of Pedro Serrano"

39

(4)

GASPAR DE VILLARROEL

"The Adventurer Who Pretended That He Was a Bishop"

43

(3)

CATALINA DE ERAUSO ("THE LIEUTENANT NUN")

"Amorous and Military Adventures"

46

(4)

JUAN RODRIGUEZ FREYLE

"A Deal with Juana Garcia"

50

(7)

PART II NEW NATIONS

57

(46)

ESTEBAN ECHEVERRIA

"The Slaughter House"

59

(14)

DOMINGO FAUSTINO SARMIENTO

"The Tiger of the Plains"

73

(3)

JUANA MANUELA GORRITI

"He Who Listens May Hear--To His Regret: Confidence of a Confidence"

76

(9)

RICARDO PALMA

"Fray Gomez's Scorpion"

85

(4)

"Where and How the Devil Lost His Poncho"

89

(6)

JOAQUIM MARIA MACHADO DE ASSIS

"Midnight Mass"

95

(8)

PART III THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

103

(370)

RUBEN DARIO

"The Death of the Empress of China"

105

(6)

LEOPOLDO LUGONES

"Yzur"

111

(7)

HORACIO QUIROGA

"The Decapitated Chicken"

118

(7)

JOAO DO RIO (PAULO BARRETO)

"The Baby in Pink Buckram"

125

(6)

RAFAEL AREVALO MARTINEZ

"The Man Who Resembled a Horse"

131

(10)

RICARDO GUIRALDES

"The Braider"

141

(3)

ALFONSO HENRIQUES DE LIMA BARRETO

"The Man Who Knew Javanese"

144

(9)

ROMULO GALLEGOS

"Peace on High"

153

(6)

MARIO DE ANDRADE

"The Christmas Turkey"

159

(6)

FELISBERTO HERNANDEZ

"The Daisy Dolls"

165

(36)

ENRIQUE AMORIM

"The Photograph"

201

(4)

LUISA MERCEDES LEVINSON

"The Clearing"

205

(6)

JORGE LUIS BORGES

"The Garden of Forking Paths"

211

(10)

ALEJO CARPENTIER

"Journey Back to the Source"

221

(12)

MARIA LUISA BOMBAL

"The Tree"

233

(9)

MIGUEL ANGEL ASTURIAS

"The Legend of `El Cadejo'"

242

(5)

JUAN BOSCH

"Encarnacion Mendoza's Christmas Eve"

247

(9)

JOAO GUIMARAES ROSA

"The Third Bank of the River"

256

(5)

JUAN CARLOS ONETTI

"The Image of Misfortune"

261

(23)

JUAN RULFO

"Tell Them Not to Kill Me!"

284

(6)

OSMAN LINS

"Hahn's Pentagon"

290

(22)

JUAN JOSE ARREOLA

"The Switchman"

312

(6)

JULIO RAMON RIBEYRO

"The Featherless Buzzards"

318

(9)

VIRGILIO PINERA

"Meat"

327

(3)

AUGUSTO ROA BASTOS

"Unborn"

330

(7)

JULIO CORTAZAR

"The Night Face Up"

337

(8)

ROSARIO CASTELLANOS

"Cooking Lesson"

345

(9)

CARLOS FUENTES

"The Doll Queen"

354

(13)

JOSE DONOSO

"The Walk"

367

(16)

GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ

"Balthazar's Marvelous Afternoon"

383

(7)

MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

"The Challenge"

390

(10)

CLARICE LISPECTOR

"The Crime of the Mathematics Professor"

400

(6)

ANTONIO BENITEZ ROJO

"Buried Statues"

406

(13)

JOSE BALZA

"A Woman's Back"

419

(9)

NELIDA PINON

"The Warmth of Things"

428

(5)

DALTON TREVISAN

"Penelope"

433

(5)

CHRISTINA PERI ROSSI

"The Threshold"

438

(5)

REINALDO ARENAS

"The Parade Ends"

443

(19)

ROSARIO FERRE

"When Women Love Men"

462

(11)

Selected Bibliography

473

(4)

Acknowledgments

477

(4)

Author Index

481

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The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories

0195095901

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