Yuri Herrera

"The things people inscribe on tombstones, even if only with their breath. Erasing those things is what the Redeemers there for."

On March 10, 1920, in Pachuca, Mexico, the Compañía de Santa Gertrudis -- the largest employer in the region, and a subsidiary of the United States Smelting, Refining and Mining Company -- may have committed murder. The alert was first raised at six in the morning: a fire was tearing through the El Bordo mine. After a brief evacuation, the mouths of the shafts were sealed. Company representatives hastened to assert that "no more than ten" men remained inside the mineshafts, and that all ten were most certainly dead. Yet when the mine was opened six days later, the death toll was not ten, but eighty-seven. And there were seven survivors. A century later, acclaimed novelist Yuri Herrera has reconstructed a workers' tragedy at once globally resonant and deeply personal: Pachuca is his hometown. His work is an act of restitution for the victims and their families, bringing his full force of evocation to bear on the injustices that suffocated this horrific event into silence

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes, six English-speaking authors and six Spanish-speaking authors have collected 12 original and previously unpublished stories as their tribute to the international influence of these two giants of world literature. An introduction by Salman Rushdie explores the legacy of the two men in contemporary fiction. Don Quixote and the ambuiguity of reading / Ben Okri -- Mir Aslam of Kolachi / Kamila Shamsie -- The dogs of war / Juan Gabriel Vásquez ; translator: Anne McLean -- Coriolanus / Yuri Herrera ; translator: Lisa Dillman -- Glass / Nell Leyshon -- Opening windows / Marcos Giralt Torrente ; translator: Samantha Schnee -- The piano bar / Hisham Matar -- The secret life of Shakespeareans / Soledad Puértolas ; translator: Rosalind Harvey -- Egyptian puppet / Vicente Molina Foix ; translator: Frank Wynne -- The glass woman / Deborah Levy -- The anthology massacre / Rhidian Brook -- Shakespeare, New Mexico / Valeria Luiselli ; translator: Christiana MacSweeney.

"In the court of the King, everyone knows their place. But as the Artist wins hearts and egos with his ballads, uncomfortable truths emerge that shake the kingdom to its core"--Page 4 of cover.