Microfictions (Latin American Women Writers)

Cinderella’s sisters surgically modify their feet to win the prince’s love. A werewolf gathers up enough courage to visit a dentist. A medium trying to reach the afterworld gets a recorded message. A fox and a badger compete to out-fool each other. Whether writing of insomnia from a mosquito’s point of view or showing us what happens after the princess kisses the frog, Ana María Shua, in these fleet and incandescent stories, is nothing if not pithy—except, of course, wildly entertaining. Some as short as a sentence, these microfictions have been selected and translated from four different books. Flashes of insight, cracks of wit, twists of logic, and quirks of language: these are fictions in the distinguished Argentinean tradition of Borges and Cortázar and Denevi, as powerful as they are brief. One of Argentina’s most prolific and distinguished writers, and acclaimed worldwide, Shua displays in these microfictions the epitome of her humor, riddling logic, and mastery over our imagination. Now, for the first time in English, the fox transforms itself into a fable, and “the reader is invited to find the tail.”

Literature & Fiction

Shua, Ana María

Short Stories & Anthologies

University Of Nebraska Press

Death as a Side Effect (Latin American Women Writers)

In Death as a Side Effect, Ana María Shua’s brilliantly dark satire transports readers to a dystopic future Argentina where gangs of ad hoc marauders and professional thieves roam the streets while the wealthy purchase security behind fortified concrete walls and the elderly cower in their apartments in fear of being whisked off to state-mandated “convalescent” homes, never to return. Abandoned by his mistress, suffocated by his father, and estranged from his demented mother and ineffectual sister, Ernesto seeks his vanished lover. Hoping to save his dying father from the ministrations of a diabolical health-care system, he discovers that, ultimately, everyone is a patient, and the instruments wielded by the impersonal medical corps cut to the very heart of the social fabric. The world of this novel, with its closed districts, unsafe travel, ubiquitous security cameras, and widespread artificiality and uncertainty, is as familiar as it is strange—and as instructive, in its harrowing way, as it is deeply entertaining. The Spanish edition has been selected by the Congreso de la Lengua Española as one of the one hundred best Latin American novels published in the last twenty-five years.

Literary

In Death as a Side Effect, Ana María Shua’s brilliantly dark satire transports readers to a dystopic future Argentina where gangs of ad hoc marauders and professional thieves roam the streets while the wealthy purchase security behind fortified concrete walls and the elderly cower in their apartments in fear of being whisked off to state-mandated “convalescent” homes, never to return. Abandoned by his mistress, suffocated by his father, and estranged from his demented mother and ineffectual sister, Ernesto seeks his vanished lover. Hoping to save his dying father from the ministrations of a diabolical health-care system, he discovers that, ultimately, everyone is a patient, and the instruments wielded by the impersonal medical corps cut to the very heart of the social fabric. The world of this novel, with its closed districts, unsafe travel, ubiquitous security cameras, and widespread artificiality and uncertainty, is as familiar as it is strange—and as instructive, in its harrowing way, as it is deeply entertaining. The Spanish edition has been selected by the Congreso de la Lengua Española as one of the one hundred best Latin American novels published in the last twenty-five years.

Bison Books

Dystopian fantasy, political parable, morality tale—however one reads it, this novel is first and foremost pure Ana María Shua, a work of fiction like no other and a dark pleasure to read. Shua, an Argentinian writer widely celebrated throughout Latin America, frames her complex drama in deceptively simple, straightforward prose. The story takes place at a fat farm called The Reeds, a nightmare world that might not exist but certainly could. The last resort of the overweight wealthy (or sponsored), The Reeds subjects its “campers” to extreme measures—particularly the regimented system of public humiliation imposed by its director, a glib and sharp-minded sadist called the Professor.
Into the midst of this methodical madness comes Marina Rubin, who experiences all the excesses of The Reeds. The pervasive cruelty of this refined novel distances it from facile conclusions. Amid the mordant social satire, The Reeds’ obese campers are far more than merely victims of the system, subjected to impossible social demands for physical perfection. Out of control, fierce, rebellious, or subjugated, they are recognizable human beings, contending with an unjust but efficient authority in their unique and solitary ways.

The Weight of Temptation (Latin American Women Writers)

Born in Buenos Aires in 1951, Ana Maria Shua is one of the most exciting and prolific young Latin American Jewish writers. She published her first book at the age of sixteen; since then she has published thirteen books, including nonfiction, novels, short stories, and children's books.The Book of Memories, originally published in Spanish in 1994, is a humorous yet moving exploration of a Jewish family's history, as seen through the eyes of three generations of women. The story begins with Grandfather Gedalia leaving Poland with forged papers to escape the army and sailing to Argentina, the "other America." Sometimes charming, sometimes stingy, this patriarchal figure, a peddler and sometime moneylender, heads a clan that includes, among others, the feisty and foul-mouthed Aunt Judith and Uncle Silvester, a seducer of young girls who has such high principles that he turns himself in after missing the Argentine police raid on his socialist printing press.From the assorted perspectives of these and other characters, this tale of Jewish immigrants explores life in Argentina, the role of women, and the power and the limits of machismo and nationalism.

The Book of Memories (Jewish Latin America)

United States

University of New Mexico Press

The Book of Memories (Jewish Latin America Series)

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Editor and translator Kathy Leonard created this superb and diverse anthology to provide a literary outlet for the best of the new fiction by contemporary Latin American women authors. Through her work with the authors represented here, Leonard brings to these stories an uncompromised clarity of translation as well as useful biographical information about the authors. Subjects of the stories vary widely, with most of the stories marked with heavy doses of magic realism or black humor.

Cruel Fictions, Cruel Realities : Short Stories by Latin American Women Writers (Discoveries)

Leonard, Kathy S.

Latin American Literary Review Press

"Appropriately colloquial, idiomatic translation of prolific Argentine writer's novel Soy paciente. A humerous satire on the state's health care system, novel may remind readers of Ken Kesey's One flew over the cuckoo's nest. No accompanying materials, which is unfortunate since Shua's work is not yet well known in English"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.http://www.loc.gov/hlas/

Patient (Discoveries)

Contemporary

Part of the Pan Flauta series -- Books for young readers.From the Feelings collection: Would you like to live in a world where everything is real? Would you like to have a pen that can make all your wishes come true? Can wishes be dangerous?"

La puerta para salir del mundo (Spanish Edition)

Children's Books

Sudamericana

Fiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Translated from the Spanish by Steven J. Stewart. "Ana María Shua's microfictions reveal oneiric universes, multiform realties, secret worlds with the unlikely coherence of the absurd, the amorphous logic of the imagination. They are characterized by the most unique form of concise language and the omnipresence of humor."—Raúl Brasca

Without a Net

Hanging Loose Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shua, Ana María. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Shua, Ana María

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shua, Ana María. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Microfictions (Latin American Women Writers)

Death as a Side Effect (Latin American Women Writers)

Death as a Side Effect (Latin American Women Writers)

The Weight of Temptation (Latin American Women Writers)

The Book of Memories (Jewish Latin America)

The Book of Memories (Jewish Latin America Series)

Cruel Fictions, Cruel Realities : Short Stories by Latin American Women Writers (Discoveries)

Patient (Discoveries)

La puerta para salir del mundo (Spanish Edition)

Without a Net