Thursday, April 23, 2020

Ten top Latin American short stories

Fernando Sdrigotti's latest story collection is Jolts.

At the Guardian he tagged ten top Latin American short stories, including:
"Letter to a Young Lady in Paris" by Julio Cortázar

Reading Cortázar’s Bestiario as a teenager was my literary “listening to the Sex Pistols” moment. I devoured the book from cover to cover and ran to my mother’s Olivetti to start churning out my own short stories. Some of these early attempts still exist in my box of memories but needless to say none of them is as good as Letter to a Young Lady in Paris, from this extraordinary book. A flat swap starts to go wrong when our hero, who writes the missive of the title, starts vomiting bunnies that proceed to destroy the flat. Sounds strange? Welcome to Cortázar’s world.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue