Mexico City has always been a seat of empire. In its grandiose pretentions and sheer swagger, it gives the impression of power exercised over great distances. And yet this power has frequently been contested, lending the city a tough, battle-hardened look. At the same time, life in the Mexican capital can be carefree and intoxicating, and it continues to offer any visitor not only glimpses of past grandeur, but a fascinating wealth of the culture of Mexico today. This book explores how the...

**OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD!THE RUNAWAY BESTSELLERFall in love with the inspiring, emotional and feel-good story of one woman’s life-changing journey to happiness. Perfect for fans of Fredrik Backman, Matt Haig and Before the Coffee Gets Cold.**'My therapist told me to buy this book, and she was right. Fantastic.' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'A beautiful wake-up call for me.' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐It's never too late to be h...

Barcelona, Spring 2022. The morning new recruit Vicente Misfit reports for his first day at "The Organisation", a meeting is called to discuss three mysteries:A man has been found hanged in a room in a hotel on the Rambla San José.An Englishman by the name of Jenkins has disappeared from his luxury yacht in the port.The canning company Conservas Fernández is the only firm in these times of high inflation not to have increased its prices at...

If I close my eyes now, I can still feel her blood on my fingers. If only I had closed my eyes then, or kept my mouth shut, not told anyone about our discovery by the swimming hole, we could have gone back to dreaming about spaceships.A horrifying discovery by two young boys while playing in a mango plantation marks the end of their childhood. As they finally open their eyes to the adult world, they see a place where storybook heroes don't exist but villains and lies do ...

In the late '60s, Julián Ríos began work on what would have been his very first novel, but fearing that it wouldn't pass the stringent Spanish censorship under Franco, decided not to submit the completed book to publishers. Soon distracted by what would be his magnum opus—the Larva series—the manuscript was set aside and forgotten, until the author found and dusted it off almost fifty years later. Quite unlike his later postmodernist work, the short and bitter Procession of Sh...

In January 1949 on an otherwise unremarkable day in an unremarkable Barcelona neighbourhood cinema, a prostitute is murdered in cold blood in the projection booth by the assistant projectionist, one Fermín Sicart.More than thirty years later, a screenwriter resolves to determine the truth behind her murder, and seeks out Fermin, who has served his time. But though Fermin remembers killing his victim, and exactly how he did it, he cannot for the life of him recall why....

Marcia is sixteen, overweight and unhappy. One day, as she's walking down a Buenos Aires street, she hears a shout: 'Wannafuck?' Startled, she turns round and is confronted by two punk girls Lenin and Mao. Soon, she's beguiled by them and the possibilities they open up. But the two have little time for a philosophical discussion of love: they need proof, and with their own savage logic the duo, calling themselves the Commando of Love, hold up a supermarket as the novel climaxes in an unfor...

A story by Nobel Prize-winning writer Jose Saramago, gorgeously illustrated in woodcuts by one of Brazil's most famous artists.When a lizard appears in the neighborhood of Chiado, in Lisbon, it surprises passers-by, and mobilizes firefighters and the army. With a clear and precise style, the fable offers a multitude of senses, reaching audiences of all ages. "The Lizard" is a short story included in A Bagagem do Viajante (1973), a volume that brought togeth...

A mesmerising and enigmatic collection of short stories, haunted by the horrors of war, and divided into two parts: journeys and flowers. A lone traveller with no endpoint in sight finds himself journeying through villages where the dead walk at solstice, silkworm-like women live in cocoons and a thousand men in gleaming armour play at being soldiers. Reality blurs, shimmers and darkens; unease grows. Stories of invented flowers follow and allow nature to bloom, vivid and intoxicating, to ...

On the morning of February 6, 1999, Buenos Aires police officers shot and killed seventeen-year-old Víctor Manuel Vital, better known as Frente, while he was unarmed, hiding under a table, and trying to surrender. Widely known and respected throughout Buenos Aires's shantytowns for his success as a thief, commitment to a code of honor, and generosity to his community, Frente became a Robin Hood--style legend who, in death, was believed to have the power to make bullets swerve and save gang...

Stories of war and conflict form the backbone of much of the Western literary canon, portraying a certain image of heroism, stoicism, and survival in the face of violence. War and Imagination challenges the canon with essays, short stories, and a wide variety of perspectives.Paying particular attention to the twentieth century and prioritizing the writings of civilians, the works highlighted in War and Imagination offer an opportunity to challenge representations ...

When Octavio Paz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990, it was in recognition of the fact that for many years he had been the pre-eminent poet in the Spanish speaking world. His work takes the traditions of Mexican poetry as well as French and Spanish influences, and adds what he himself read of his contemporaries in Mexico, Britain and France, in particular, the Surrealists. But Paz was also a great polemicist and essayist, described by V. S. Naipaul as ‘a kind of Mexican George Orwe...