Cuentos completos

Winner of the Premio Cervantes for literature in 1980, Uruguayan Onetti is often given the epithet Godfather to Modern Latin American Literature. Readers of his works can expect to return to the invented world of Santa María (sometimes spelled Santamaría in Onetti's works), full of lonely characters, which makes several appearances here. Edited by Hortensia Campanella, this volume collects short works that had been scattered in newspapers and obscure magazines and includes an appendix of unedited stories and fragments. The stories, written over six decades (1933—93), are dimly yet beautifully remembered accounts, told in fragments and showered in the blinding light of oblivion and prediction. A perplexed cynicism plagues the characters, who surrender to reality and yet seek to escape it through storytelling, whether they are obsessing over desolate lovers or bending with dislike toward the certainty of old age. In this way, Onetti playfully holds up a mirror to readers, who can recognize themselves in his characters' inventiveness. In "Convalecencia" ("Convalescence"), a woman represses the existence of her lover as she lies on the beach, suspended in the delicious slumber and lull of waves; so are we suspended in Onetti's words, never wanting to turn away. Recommended for public and academic libraries with Hispanic literature collections. [See also the review of Cuando ya no importe, above.—Ed.]—Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Palo Alto, CA