This capacious anthology has selections from the authors you would expect to find, from others you may be less familiar with, and from writers you might not expect to show up in this company. The result is a treasure trove of unusual fiction, one of the most exciting anthologies to appear in the last decade. This is a poet’s companion, a student’s delight, great bedside reading: the kind of book you’d take to a desert island!
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION • Nikolai Gogol: The Nose • Leo Tolstoy: The Porcelain Doll • Thomas Mann: The Wardrobe • Hugo Von Hofmannsthal: A Tale of the Cavalry • Henry James: The Jolly Corner • Rainer Maria Rilke: The Death of Chamberlain Brigge (excerpt) • Rainer Maria Rilke: The Hand (excerpt) • D. H. Lawrence: Odour of Chrysanthemums • D. H. LAWRENCE: The Blind Man • Franz Kafka: A Country Doctor • Franz Kafka: The Bucket Rider • Isaac Babel: The Sin of Jesus • Yuri Olesha: Lyompa • Osip Emilievich Mandelstam: The Egyptian Stamp (excerpt) • Virginia Woolf: The Great Frost (excerpt) • Bruno Schulz: The Street of Crocodiles • Vladimir Nabokov: The Visit to the Museum • María Luisa Bombal: New Islands • Henri Michaux: In the Land of Magic (excerpt) • William Faulkner: The Old People • Eudora Welty: Moon Lake • Aníbal Monteiro Machado: The Piano • Jorge Luis Borges: The Aleph • Jorge Louis Borges: The South • Octavio Paz: My Life with the Wave • John Cheever: The Enormous Radio • Vjekoslav Kaleb: The Guest • Tommaso Landolfi: gogol’s Wife • Alfonso Reyes: Major Aranda’s Hand • Julio Cortázar: Axolotl • Julio Cortázar: The Night Face Up • Alejo Carpentier: Journey to the Seed • Clarice Lispector: The Smallest Woman in the World • Carlos Fuentes: Aura • Elizabeth Bishop: In the Village • Italo Calvino: The Distance of the Moon • Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities (excerpt) • Gabriel García Marquez: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings • Gabriel García Marquez: Blacamán the Good, Vendor of Miracles • Robert Escarpit: Cloud Maker • Donald Barthelme: Views of My Father Weeping • Milan Kundera: The Angels (excerpt)