Juan Carlos Onetti

Medina lives, "across the river from Santa Maria, a town he is not allowed to enter and the he therefore wishes to destroy."

At a lush villa on the sun-soaked island of Madeira, Martin Radford is given a second chance. His life ruined by scandal, Martin holds in his hands the leather-bound journal of another ruined man, former British cabinet minister Edwin Strafford. What's more, Martin is being offered a job--to return to England and investigate the rise and fall of Strafford, an ambitious young politician whose downfall, in 1910, is as mysterious as the strange deaths that still haunt his family.Martin is intrigued by Strafford's story, by the man's overwhelming love for a beautiful suffragette, by her inexplicable rejection of him and their love affair's political repercussions. But as he retraces Strafford's ruination, Martin realizes that Strafford did not fall by chance; he was pushed. Suddenly Martin, who has not cared for many people in his life, cares desperately--about a man's mysterious death and a family's terrible secret, about a love beyond reckoning and betrayal beyond imagining. Most of all Martin cares because the story he is uncovering is not yet over--and among the men and women still caught in its web, Martin himself may be the most vulnerable of all....From the Trade Paperback edition.

"Edición de artículos periodísticos del escritor uruguayo compilados por su hijo, el periodista Jorge Onetti, muestran al Onetti lector en sus reflexiones sobre los libros que admiraba y que le interesaban leer. Este volumen agrega una dimensión más al perfil del admirado escritor uruguayo"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

"Colección de cuentos aparecidos en el Semanario Marcha compilados por María Angélica Petit, quien señala en el prólogo que el volumen reúne la totalidad de la escritura no ficcional de J.C. Onetti, publicada en Marcha a través de los años"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

"Relato de contrabandistas misteriosos que viven una aventura que Onetti describe con humor y con ternura ..."--P. of cover.

Written in 1950, A Brief Life is the first novel to feature Onetti's mythical town of Santa Maria. His protagonist Brausen eavesdrops on the conversation of his neighbours, a husband and wife, imagining their gestures, their expressions. Brausen lives with his wife, who has undergone major surgery after being diagnosed with breast cancer. To compensate for this physical void which stalls their caresses, Brausen imagines stories: of Santa Maria, and of a doctor named Diaz Grey. But he not only wishes to imagine himself as someone else, he also seeks release from himself and from the world he knows. He leads many lives, some real and some fantastic, in order to experience a moment of psychic weightlessness - a "brief life."

With all the enthusiasm of a man condemned to be hanged, Larsen takes up his new post. Like the other workers at the shipyard, he routinely goes through the motions. Every so often, his sense of reality is shaken by a tremor of self-deception, and then it is possible to believe that the yard's glory is not just a thing of the past.--[publisher's description].

This is a companion volume to the collections of Soviet, German, Italian, and French short stories which have already appeared in Penguin Parallel Texts. The stories selected are representative, of contemporary writing in Spanish from all parts, and seven of the eight included are the work of Spanish-American authors. The literal English translations, together with the notes and biographies of the writers, are intended to help English-speaking students of Spanish; but the book can also be enjoyed by readers with a knowledge of either language and an interest in modern literature. El presente volumen forma parte de la serie de historias cortas en las lenguas rusa, alemana, italiana y francesa que han aparecido previamente en la colecciónn Pinguino de Textos Paralelos. Los cuentos elegidos son representatives del estilo literario del español contemporaneo de diversas naciones. Siete de los ocho trabajos incluidos son por autores hispanoamericanos. La traduccion es literal y junto con las notas y biografía de los escritores tiene por objeto ayudar a los estudiantes ingleses de la lengua española. No obstante, este libro será también del agrado de los lectores de una y otra lengua interesados en literature moderna.