Magical Surrealism, anyone? Here's your author: novelist and short story writer Lygia Fagundes Telles, Born 1923 in Brazil. One of nineteen fabuloso writers included in this outstanding collection edited by Alberto Manguel.

Quote from Isabel Allende in her Forward: “These writers of diverse Latin American countries have expressed our fears and hopes, our delicate ceremonies, our secrets and rebellions, our love and rancor. They are feminine voices trying to interpret the hidden meaning of the sexuality, the power, the ambition, and the injustice of the macho world where they must live.” .

Other Fires contains stories by authors such as Clarice Lispector (Brazil), Rosario Castellanos (Mexico), Armonia Somers (Columbia) and Liliana Heker (Argentina). I’d love to do a write-up of all the stories but I’ll focus on three, beginning with a Lygia Fagundes Telles story, one with sheer espectacular energy:

TIGRELA
Exotic Roommate: By chance in a café, our unnamed narrator bumps into her half drunk friend Romana. “She had been beautiful and still was, but her now-corrupted beauty was sad even when she was happy.” Romana tells how she separated from her fifth husband (fifth!) and is now living with a small tiger in a penthouse. Oh, yes, a tiger since her boyfriend returned from his travels though Asia with Tigrela, a teeny-tiny tiger raised on a bottle. Oh, my goodness. In fact, there are wealthy city-dwellers who do keep exotic big cats like lynx, cougar, puma or panther in their apartments, which adds a provocative realistic quality to the tale.

Exotic Persona, One: Romona speaks of how Tigrela likes whiskey but she knows how to drink; two thirds tiger and one third woman, Tigrela has become more and more human; how she and Tigrela started imitating one another so much she can’t remember if it was Tigrela who taught her to look slit-eyed in the mirror. Hey! Wait a minute. Are we talking about a real tiger or a tiger-like component of Romana’s psyche? I’m beginning to hear echoes of Harry Haller the Steppenwolf, half man, half wolf.

Exotic Persona, Two: Turns out there is hardly room for them both in the apartment. “One of us will really have to . . . She interrupted herself to light a small cigarillo, the flame flickering in her trembling hand.” To my way of reading, another possible interpretation is the narrator and Romana are one and the same person. Speaking of Romana as if a friend is a sly method for the narrator to sort out her own human/tiger identity. Along with this, of course, is how fiction writing itself can be a way for an author to clarify their own multifaceted self-identity, in this case specifically, Lygia Fagundes Telles clarifying her Tigrela-like personality.

The Plot Thickens: The story develops with references to men, sex and suicide. You will have to read for yourself how exactly all the pieces fit together. I will leave you with a quote on how Romana’s personality is much more sophisticated than simply a Steppenwolf-like higher human/lower animal dichotomy: “You should see how well Tigrela matches the apartment. I traveled through Persia and brought back fabrics, rugs, she adores this velvet comfort, she’s so sensitive to the touch of things, to smells. When she wakes up restless, I light the incense; the perfume calms her.”

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HOW THE MONKEY LOST THE FRUIT OF HIS LABOR
Lydia Cabrera retells many Afro-Cuban fables and legends in a way that retains the liveliness of the original oral tradition. In this story, Juan Ganga tells his wife he will clear an acre of land and plant some rice. He does some clearing and the field, as if by magic, is completely cleared; he does some planting and the field, as if by magic, is completely planted.

When the rice is all grown and ripe, he is greeted by a monkey who asks Juan when he plans to begin the harvest. Juan says he will bring his helpers tomorrow morning and the monkey, in turn, tells Juan he will bring 100 monkeys and, since he also cleared and planted on this acre, isn’t it fair that you and your helpers start on one end and me and my 100 monkeys start on the other end? And whoever gathers more, well, isn’t that’s fair? Juan has to admit to the monkey that that’s fair.

Poor Juan! He now has to convey the truth of the matter to Viviana Angola, his wife. No problem, says Viviana as she has a plan to deal with those monkeys. Lydia Cabrera does indeed retain the rhythm and color of oral tradition in the way she writes about how Viviana Angola (what a woman!) hypnotizes all those sex-crazed monkeys with bells on her legs and lifting the hem of her skirt. We read: “Goringoro-goro-goro-goro. “Oh!” The monkeys stupidly stand there rooted in place, waiting for Viviana Angola to raise her skirt just once more to satisfy their curiosity. The men keep right on working steadily.”


Lydia Cabrera (Cuba, 1899-1991)

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THE BLOODY COUNTESS
The poet Alejandra Pizarnik wrote just one prose piece, this tale in the form of an article about the Countess Barthory, Hungarian noblewoman accused of torturing and killing many hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1610. The Countess’ unspeakable cruelty and crimes against humanity are detailed in eleven brief chapters with such headings as The Iron Maiden, Death by Water, The Lethal Cage, and Classical Torture. It takes a strong stomach to read this story; I can just imagine what it must have taken for a sensitive poet to write it. I’ll skip over the gory details and quote a portion of the last chapter recounting how, after the authorities finally took action, Countess Barthory spend her last years locked away in isolation:

“Around her the prison grew. The doors and windows of her room were walled up; only a small opening was left in one of the walls to allow her to receive her food. And when everything was ready, four gallows were erected on the four corners of the castle to indicate that within those walls lived a creature condemned to death.

In this way she lived for three years, almost wasting away with cold and hunger. She never showed the slightest sign of repentance. She never understood why she had been condemned. On August 21, 1614, a contemporary historian wrote: “She died at dawn, abandoned by everyone.”

She was never afraid, she never trembled. And no compassion, no sympathy or admiration may be felt for her. Only a certain astonishment at the enormity of the horror, a fascination with a white dress that turns red, with the idea of total laceration, with the imagination of a silence starred with cries in which everything reflects an unacceptable beauty.”

Rather than venturing any speculation on what might have gone through the mind of the poet during her research and writing of this piece, below is a verse from one of her poems. Also, it is well for us to keep in mind Alejandra had a difficult, painful childhood, suffered from a terrible case of acne and, when speaking Spanish in Argentina, struggled with a stutter and heavy foreign accent (her parents immigrated from Eastern Europe). She took her own life at age thirty-six.

An except from Alejandra Pizarnik's poem, On Silence:

No one paints in green.
Everything is orange.
If I am anything, I’m cruelty.
Colors streak the silent sky like rotting beasts. Then someone tries to write a poem out of forms, colors, bitterness, lucidity (Hush, alejandra, you’ll frighten the children…)


Alejandra Pizarnik (Argentina, 1936-1972) ( )

Magical Surrealism, anyone? Here's your author: novelist and short story writer Lygia Fagundes Telles, Born 1923 in Brazil. One of nineteen fabuloso writers included in this outstanding collection edited by Alberto Manguel.

“These writers of diverse Latin American countries have expressed our fears and hopes, our delicate ceremonies, our secrets and rebellions, our love and rancor. They are feminine voices trying to interpret the hidden meaning of the sexuality, the power, the ambition, and the injustice of the macho world where they must live.” Quote from Isabel Allende in her forward. “Other Fires” contains stories by authors such as Clarice Lispector (Brazil), Rosario Castellanos (Mexico), Armonia Somers (Columbia) and Liliana Heker (Argentina). I’d love to do a write-up of all the stories but I’ll focus on three, beginning with a Lygia Fagundes Telles story, one with sheer espectacular energy:

Tigrela
Exotic Roommate: By chance in a café, our unnamed narrator bumps into her half drunk friend Romana. “She had been beautiful and still was, but her now-corrupted beauty was sad even when she was happy.” Romana tells how she separated from her fifth husband (fifth!) and is now living with a small tiger in a penthouse. Oh, yes, a tiger since her boyfriend returned from his travels though Asia with Tigrela, a teeny-tiny tiger raised on a bottle. Oh, my goodness. In fact, there are wealthy city-dwellers who do keep exotic big cats like lynx, cougar, puma or panther in their apartments, which adds a provocative realistic quality to the tale.

Exotic Persona, One: Romona speaks of how Tigrela likes whiskey but she knows how to drink; two thirds tiger and one third woman, Tigrela has become more and more human; how she and Tigrela started imitating one another so much she can’t remember if it was Tigrela who taught her to look slit-eyed in the mirror. Hey! Wait a minute. Are we talking about a real tiger or a tiger-like component of Romana’s psyche? I’m beginning to hear echoes of Harry Haller the Steppenwolf, half man, half wolf.

Exotic Persona, Two: Turns out there is hardly room for them both in the apartment. “One of us will really have to . . . She interrupted herself to light a small cigarillo, the flame flickering in her trembling hand.” To my way of reading, another possible interpretation is the narrator and Romana are one and the same person. Speaking of Romana as if a friend is a sly method for the narrator to sort out her own human/tiger identity. Along with this, of course, is how fiction writing itself can be a way for an author to clarify their own multifaceted self-identity, in this case specifically, Lygia Fagundes Telles clarifying her Tigrela-like personality.

The Plot Thickens: The story develops with references to men, sex and suicide. You will have to read for yourself how exactly all the pieces fit together. I will leave you with a quote on how Romana’s personality is much more sophisticated than simply a Steppenwolf-like higher human/lower animal dichotomy: “You should see how well Tigrela matches the apartment. I traveled through Persia and brought back fabrics, rugs, she adores this velvet comfort, she’s so sensitive to the touch of things, to smells. When she wakes up restless, I light the incense; the perfume calms her.”

How the Monkey Lost the Fruit of His Labor
Lydia Cabrera retells many Afro-Cuban fables and legends in a way that retains the liveliness of the original oral tradition. In this story, Juan Ganga tells his wife he will clear an acre of land and plant some rice. He does some clearing and the field, as if by magic, is completely cleared; he does some planting and the field, as if by magic, is completely planted. When the rice is all grown and ripe, he is greeted by a monkey who asks Juan when he plans to begin the harvest. Juan says he will bring his helpers tomorrow morning and the monkey, in turn, tells Juan he will bring 100 monkeys and, since he also cleared and planted on this acre, isn’t it fair that you and your helpers start on one end and me and my 100 monkeys start on the other end? And whoever gathers more, well, isn’t that’s fair? Juan has to admit to the monkey that that’s fair. Poor Juan! He now has to convey the truth of the matter to Viviana Angola, his wife. No problem, says Viviana as she has a plan to deal with those monkeys. Lydia Cabrera does indeed retain the rhythm and color of oral tradition in the way she writes about how Viviana Angola (what a woman!) hypnotizes all those sex-crazed monkeys with bells on her legs and lifting the hem of her skirt. We read: “Goringoro-goro-goro-goro. “Oh!” The monkeys stupidly stand there rooted in place, waiting for Viviana Angola to raise her skirt just once more to satisfy their curiosity. The men keep right on working steadily.”

Lydia Cabrera (Cuba, 1899-1991)

The Bloody Countess
The poet Alejandra Pizarnik wrote just one prose piece, this tale in the form of an article about the Countess Barthory, Hungarian noblewoman accused of torturing and killing many hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1610. The Countess’ unspeakable cruelty and crimes against humanity are detailed in eleven brief chapters with such headings as ‘The Iron Maiden,’ ‘Death by Water,’ ‘The Lethal Cage,’ and ‘Classical Torture.’ It takes a strong stomach to read this story; I can just imagine what it must have taken for a sensitive poet to write it. I’ll skip over the gory details and quote a portion of the last chapter recounting how, after the authorities finally took action, Countess Barthory spend her last years locked away in isolation:

“Around her the prison grew. The doors and windows of her room were walled up; only a small opening was left in one of the walls to allow her to receive her food. And when everything was ready, four gallows were erected on the four corners of the castle to indicate that within those walls lived a creature condemned to death.

In this way she lived for three years, almost wasting away with cold and hunger. She never showed the slightest sign of repentance. She never understood why she had been condemned. On August 21, 1614, a contemporary historian wrote: “She died at dawn, abandoned by everyone.”

She was never afraid, she never trembled. And no compassion, no sympathy or admiration may be felt for her. Only a certain astonishment at the enormity of the horror, a fascination with a white dress that turns red, with the idea of total laceration, with the imagination of a silence starred with cries in which everything reflects an unacceptable beauty.”

Rather than venturing any speculation on what might have gone through the mind of the poet during her research and writing of this piece, below is a verse from one of her poems. Also, it is well for us to keep in mind Alejandra had a difficult, painful childhood, suffered from a terrible case of acne and, when speaking Spanish in Argentina, struggled with a stutter and heavy foreign accent (her parents immigrated from Eastern Europe). She took her own life at age thirty-six.

An except from Alejandra Pizarnik's poem, "On Silence"

No one paints in green.
Everything is orange.
If I am anything, I’m cruelty.
Colors streak the silent sky like rotting beasts. Then someone tries to write a poem out of forms, colors, bitterness, lucidity (Hush, alejandra, you’ll frighten the children…)

Alejandra Pizarnik (Argentina, 1936-1972) ( )

This anthology (published 1986) comprises pieces and translations that had not been widely available before, and most of the writers are little published outside of Latin America. The fictions range from horror to fantasy to acutely-observed naturalism, science fiction and psychological case studies. Anthologies are frequently uneven, and judgment of any compilation is largely a matter of subjective tastes, but only a few of the nineteen selections here fell flat for me. Among the standout bits:

Armonía Somers, “The Fall”
A kind of surreal horror story describing a killer’s last moments, face to face with a figurine of the Holy Virgin in the remote ramshackle house where he is hiding.

Rachel De Queiroz, “Metonymy, or the Husband’s Revenge”
A lesson in conceptual logic disguised as an act of misplaced vengeance.

Alejandra Pizarnik, “The Bloody Countess”
A faux-historical article on the life of a 17th c. Hungarian royal with Sadeian proclivities.

Vlady Kociancich, “Knight, Death and the Devil”
An evocative, pitch-perfect four-page caption to Dürer’s engraving of the same title; it first appeared in a small Argentine journal in 1967. This is the kind of piece that anthologies were meant to rescue from obscurity.

Inés Arredondo, “The Shunammite”
A seemingly simple tale of a young woman returning to assist a dying uncle becomes a meditation on the subtle oppressions of matrimony and machismo.

Albalucía Angel, “The Guerillero”
An artfully crafted two-page interior monologue, during which a woman awaiting the return of her beloved first warns herself away from foolish resistance to the powers that be, then gradually steels herself with a kind of fatalism which eventually gives way to an assertive, liberating defiance.

Silvina Ocampo, “The Inextinguishable Race”
A chilling report delivered in an absurdist tone on the improvements and lingering challenges in a town where self-serving children are in charge. I always knew the little buggers had it in for us.

Lydia Cabrera, “How the Monkey Lost the Fruit of His Labor”
An allegory with animals celebrating (or is it warning against?) lasciviousness.

i forgot that i don't care for magic realism and that other one they do in south america. anyway the book was better than i expected. i got it because it was women writers and maybe that was ok. ( )

Not as overwhelmingly wonderful as Black Water so far. Manguel's introduction ("Latin America is an imaginary place") won me over immediately, though. ( )