Before you know it you are no longer young, and by the way, while you were thinking about other things, the world was changing-and then, just as suddenly you realize that you are fifty years old. Aira had anticipated his fiftieth-a time when he would not so much recall years past as look forward to what lies ahead-but the birthday came and went without much ado. It was only months later, while having a somewhat banal conversation with his wife...
In the aftermath of a fiftieth birthday party, a chance comment makes a writer reflect on a gap in his understanding of the world, sending the writer to a cafe to attempt to piece his thoughts together. Arifa Akbar in the "Financial Times" praised "Birthday" for how it 'combines brevity with so many possible meanings.
Translated into English for the first time, On Contemporary Art , a speech by the renowned novelist César Aira, was delivered at a 2010 colloquium in Madrid dedicated to bridging the gap between writing and the visual arts. On Aira's dizzying and dazzling path, everything comes under question- from reproducibility of art works to the value of the written word itself. In the end, Aira leaves us stranded on the bridge between writing and art tha...
Johann Moritz Rugendas, noto pittore tedesco dell'Ottocento, compie un viaggio tra la regione andina e l'Argentina insieme a un altro pittore più giovane, il fidato amico Krause. 1 due paesaggisti cercano il volto nascosto della loro arte e sono catturati dall'ignota immensità, che palpita di mistero, si immergono nella ricchezza della natura, nella sua specificità, nella vivida diversità rispetto ai climi e agli ambienti del Vecchio Mondo. So...
In Ghosts, a group of immigrant workers and their families are squatting on the haunted construction site of a luxury condominium building. One teenage girl's interest in the ghosts on the site becomes so intense that her mother realizes her life is in the balance. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter tells of a point in the life of German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas, when he visits Latin America to paint its spectacular landscapes...
Nel mese di marzo di un anno qualsiasi, il mago argentino Hans Chans prende parte a un raduno di illusionisti a Panama. La peculiarità di Hans Chans è che, a differenza dei suoi colleghi prestigiatori, dispone di poteri reali. Ha il dono di trasformare i desideri in realtà, di modificare a suo gusto le leggi del mondo fisico e di far sì che oggetti, animali o persone appaiano o scompaiano, si spostino, si moltiplichino, galleggino in aria... T...
Auf einer paradiesischen Insel vor Panama lebt die arbeitsame Prinzessin Primavera. Sie bangt um ihre berufliche Zukunft, doch es kommt schlimmer als erwartet : Am Strand legt die Kriegsflotte ihres Erzfeinds General Winter an, in dessen Gepäck sich neben Raketenwerfern und allerlei Kriegsgerät auch noch ein sadistischer Weihnachtsbaum befindet. Eine Invasion scheint unvermeidlich, und im Gegensatz zu den Unterhaltungsromanen, mit deren Überse...
Es war einmal in Colonel Pringles, jenem mythischen Städtchen César Airas: Dort lebte eine Näherin ohne Geschmack, aber von unendlicher Fingerfertigkeit. Wie viele andere Frauen in Pringles hatte sie einen einzigen Sohn. Eines Tages glaubt sie ihn entführt und nach Patagonien verschleppt. Sie rafft das Brautkleid zusammen, das sie noch schnell für die örtliche Kunstlehrerin nähen soll, springt in ein Taxi und folgt ihrem Sohn in wilder Jagd. A...
In the town square of Coronel Pringles stands a lime tree from which the author's father used to brew a sedative tea. This Proustian infusion evokes dark memories of the 1955 anti-Perónist revolution, which dashed the family's middle-class dreams. The Lime Tree is a portrait of the artist as a child and a lucid analysis of a family's social trajectory.
Parientes en un improbable árbol genealógico, que reúne al azar primos
de príncipes de Petersburgo y cabecitas negras de las provincias, el
Conde Vladimir Hilario Orlov, aristócrata del arte del relato, y Don
Aniceto, gaucho viejo y socarrón, sobrellevan la velada con una
auténtica ?tan irónica como cortés? payada estilística: de un lado, la
narración improvisada, de comienzo realista y final fantástico, hecha
de misterio, sutileza y elegantes...
Ahí habría terminado todo, si no hubiera venido en su auxilio una
esperanza relampagueante, tan fuerte, tan salvaje, tan precisa que nada
podía resistírsele. No era nada religioso, ni filosófico, ni un truco
de autoayuda...Era todo eso junto, pero mucho más: era el Sueño, el que
había tenido la noche anterior, y cuyo recuerdo había vuelto hacía dos
horas, al cruzar la Avenida...~Mario es el hijo del dueño de un puesto
de diarios en el barrio d...