This was the first Spanish literature I read, and it was perfect for that purpose. The translations are very bare-bones, good for glancing across and getting the gist. The stories are well selected, many of them are quite good (if memory serves, this was a while ago). I highly recommend it for advanced Spanish students (I read it at the end of high school). ( )

Well footnoted. Good language practice. However, the selection of stories could've been better. No women were represented in this collection. Yes, people stereotype the Latin countries as being sexist, but I'm sure the editor could've found at least one excellent story written by a Latina. The choices were safe, from canonized writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The plots tended to be very subtle, and perhaps my Spanish is to blame. Only two had much humor. Both of those were dark humor. However, the dark humor of Carlos Martinez Moreno's "Paloma" is my kind of humor. My heart is with the pigeon.

Sadly, there aren't nearly enough parallel text English/Spanish books, so I read it all, painfully aware of how much more time it takes me to read in Spanish than in English. If anyone comes across a more inspired collection, let me know. ( )

A varied, if somewhat sombre, collection of (mostly Latin American) short stories, with English translations alongside, and endnotes on usage and translation provided.
Although the stories are bilingual, the book is targeted at English-speakers learning Spanish, so all supplementary material is in English.

Borges - 'Emma Zunz'
Benedetti - 'El Presupuesto'
Murena - 'El Coronel de Caballería'
García Marquez - 'Monólogo de Isabel Viendo Llover en Macondo'
Onetti - 'Bienvenido, Bob'
Cela - 'La Romería'
Martínez Moreno - 'Paloma'
Rulfo - 'Talpa'

The book was first published in 1966, and the stories are beginning to seem a bit dated. ( )

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