Las Novelas de Maria de Zayas (1590-1650)

He's proven it and proves it again in this hilarious, fast-paced story animated by her proverbial grace and his wit. Marco Denevi and some mysterious alter ego narrate a vast chronicle in an unusual way: offering the details of that kind of saga shredded in the articles of an encyclopedia. Articles that the reader can put together in diverse narrative systems, advancing successively, or alternating their advance in jumps, crosses, combinations... Thus, they will compose the story of an Argentine family that begins with the arrival in these lands of a Manuel the Adelantadito, conqueror of the...

The five novels written by Juan José Millás between 1988 and 1998 (El desorden de tu nombre; La soledad era esto, Volver a casa; Tonto, muerto, bastardo e invisible; and El orden alfabético) display an increasing preoccupation with a limited number of themes, principally identity and social criticism. They also demonstrate the constant reiteration of a specific group of motifs, an increasing use of metafictional devices, and the use of bizarre or mentally disturbed protagonists. Millás presents writing as the compulsive expression of obsessive thought. This book explains Millás's...

Fernan Gonzalez lived from about AD 910 to 970. The popular image of him is of a fearsome warrior who gave his people protection from their enemies (both Muslim and Christian), and a wise and respected lord who enabled them to live in security and harmony. He was generally accepted to have played a strategic role in achieving independence for Castile and freeing it from dominance by the kingdom of Leon. The Poema de Fernan Gonzalez was composed (by an unknown author) in the mid-thirteenth century as an enduring celebration of his triumphs and account of his life and deeds. Fact and legend...

Virgilio Piñera, author of a large collection of poems, short stories, novels, plays, and essays, is one of Cuba's most important writers. Poètica de la Frialdad offers a new reading of Piñera's narrative. During the 1940's, when Caribbean writers such as Alejo Carpentier and Josè Lezama Lima were elaborating the aesthetics of magic realism, the neo-baroque and negritude, Piòera's tendency was opposite. Some of his books have titles such as Cuentes frìos (Cold Stories), Aire frìos (Cold Air) and Helada zona (Frozen Zone). For Piñera, coldness is a poetic principle that governs not...