Eye of the Heart

This book was published in 1973 and contained 42 pieces by 41 authors, from 13 nations and Puerto Rico. The selections, almost all of them short stories, ranged from the 1880s (Machado de Assis and Ruben Dario) through each decade to 1970 (Roa Bastos), with coverage heaviest for the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Cuba were the most frequently represented countries. For Argentina, with the most authors, the choices were Lugones, Güiraldes, Borges, Arlt, Cortázar, Bioy Casares and Costantini. The youngest authors were Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Edwards of Chile and Mario Vargas Llosa, born in the late 1920s/mid-1930s. The female authors included were Mistral, Bombal, Silveira de Queiroz, Lispector and Somers. Other of the well-known writers included Guimarães Rosa, Onetti, Amado, Rulfo, Donoso, García Márquez and Cabrera Infante. For me, the distinctive things about this book were the care it took in selecting for the most part stories that were relatively easy to follow and enjoy, and its inclusion of writers who don't often appear in subsequent anthologies, such as Gallegos, Güiraldes, Arlt, Arguedas, Bosch, Arreola and Roa Bastos. Unlike, say, the Borzoi Anthology of Latin American Literature published in the same decade, the present book for the most part avoided fragmented, baroque writing, except in the selections for Asturias and Carpentier. In addition, several of the region's best-known poets were included (Darío, Mistral, Vallejo, Neruda, Paz), though with prose selections, not poetry. Neruda's contained reminiscences of his childhood, interest in nature and reading