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Best known as Jorge Luis Borges’s right-hand man, Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914−1999) was, in his own right, an inventive writer of considerable skill. His works, often dismissed summarily as fantastic fiction, are now ripe for reassessment. This volume looks at Bioy’s extensive oeuvre which offers many surprising reflections on the twentieth century’s cultural, social and political transformations, both in Argentina and farther afield. Topics covered include Bioy’s meditations on isolation and logic, and his enduring fascination with the impact of photography on all artistic representation.
Fifteen stories by an Argentinian writer mixing the fantastic with the real. The subjects range from love to madness.
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Lucio, a normal man in a normal (nosy) city neighborhood with normal problems with his in-laws (ever-present) and job (he lost it) finds he has a new problem on his hands: his beloved wife, Diana. She’s been staying out till all hours of the night and grows more disagreeable by the day. Should Lucio have Diana committed to the Psychiatric Institute, as her friend the dog trainer suggests? Before Lucio can even make up his mind, Diana is carted away by the mysterious head of the institute. Never mind, Diana’s sister, who looks just like Diana—and yet is nothing like her—has moved in. And on the recommendation of the dog trainer, Lucio acquires an adoring German shepherd, also named Di...
A witty yet gripping pastiche of murder mysteries set in an Argentine seaside resort, peppered with literary allusions In seaside Bosque de Mar, guests at the Hotel Central are struck by double misfortune: the mysterious death of one of their party, and an investigation headed by the physician, writer and insufferable busybody, Dr. Humberto Huberman. When quiet, young translator Mary is found dead on the first night of Huberman's stay, he quickly appoints himself leader of an inquiry that will see blame apportioned in turn to each and every guest--including Mary's own sister--and culminating in a wild, wind-blown reconnaissance mission to the nearby shipwreck, the Joseph K. Never before translated into English, Where There's Love, There's Hate is both genuinely suspenseful mystery fiction and an ingenious pastiche of the genre, the only novel co-written by two towering figures of Latin American literature. Famously friends and collaborators of Jorge Luis Borges, husband and wife Bioy Casares and Ocampo combine their gifts to produce a novel that's captivating, unashamedly erudite and gloriously witty.
This collection of traditional and experimental stories by Argentinian novelist Bioy Casares ( The Adventures of a Photographer in La Plata ) offers sophisticated, seamless prose, as well as magical realism and biting political satire. - Publishers Weekly
"When The Invention of Morel was first published in Argentina, Jorge Luis Borges rejoiced that the author had brought "a new genre to our land and language," The offspring of a fantastic, sometimes perverse, always persuasive imagination, Tlte Invention of Morel won for its author in 1941 the Primer Premio Municipal Award in Buenos Aires. Bioy Casares' indisputable originality, so apparent in the novella, is equally evident in the six short stories also included in this collection. Each story is an achievement of realism with curious surrealist overtones. In style, narrative technique, and off-beat imaginative insight, they coalesce to make a book full of power and impact, The volume is enhanced by drawings by Norah Borges de Torre, sister of Jorge Luis Borges, The translator, Ruth L, C. Simms, has traveled extensively in South America and is well acquainted with Spanish and Latin American literature."--Page 4 of cover.
This volume reconsiders the work and cultural import of Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914-1999), who is best known for his collaborations with Jorge Luis Borges.
"At the end of carnival 1927, Emilio Gauna had an experience that he knew was the culmination of his life. The problem is that Gauna can only dimly remember what happened: he was out on the town with his raucous, reckless friends when a masked woman appeared. Several hours later, gasping and horrified, Gauna awoke at the edge of a lake. Three years later, he tries to solve the mystery the only way he knows: by re-creating the same situation and reliving it- despite the warnings of his secret protector, the Sorcerer. In The Dreams of Heroes, Adolfo Bioy Casares assembles magicians, prophetic and brave women, shamefully self-conscious men and Buenos Aires under the rubric of a sinister and mocking fate, and thrusts them forward into the dizzying realm of memory, doom and cyclical time. Written in 1954 and never before published in America, The Dream of Heroes stands as a predecessor of and model for a whole school of European and American novels that followed but never quite matched it"--
Jorge Luis Borges declared The Invention of Morel a masterpiece of plotting, comparable to The Turn of the Screw and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Set on a mysterious island, Bioy's novella is a story of suspense and exploration, as well as a wonderfully unlikely romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious. Inspired by Bioy Casares's fascination with the movie star Louise Brooks, The Invention of Morel has gone on to live a secret life of its own. Greatly admired by Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, and Octavio Paz, the novella helped to usher in Latin American fiction's now famous postwar boom. As the model for Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet's Last Year in Marienbad, it also changed the history of film.