Julio Cortázar

Horacio Oliveira is an Argentinian writer who lives in Paris with his mistress, La Maga, surrounded by a loose-knit circle of bohemian friends who call themselves "the Club." A child's death and La Maga's disappearance put an end to his life of empty pleasures and intellectual acrobatics, and prompt Oliveira to return to Buenos Aires, where he works by turns as a salesman, a keeper of a circus cat which can truly count, and an attendant in an insane asylum. Hopscotch is the dazzling, freewheeling account of Oliveira's astonishing adventures. The book is highly influenced by Henry Miller’s reckless and relentless search for truth in post-decadent Paris and Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki’s modal teachings on Zen Buddhism. Cortázar's employment of interior monologue, punning, slang, and his use of different languages is reminiscent of Modernist writers like Joyce, although his main influences were Surrealism and the French New Novel, as well as the "riffing" aesthetic of jazz and New Wave Cinema. In 1966, Gregory Rabassa won the first National Book Award to recognize the work of a translator, for his English-language edition of Hopscotch. Julio Cortázar was so pleased with Rabassa's translation of Hopscotch that he recommended the translator to Gabriel García Márquez when García Márquez was looking for someone to translate his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude into English. "Rabassa's One Hundred Years of Solitude improved the original," according to García Márquez.

Horacio Oliveira est un nihiliste qui rejette la rationalité du monde et dont les maîtres mots sont hasard, rêve, fantaisie... L'épopée de cet exilé argentin débute à Paris où il vit un amour total avec une femme nommée la Maga ; elle se poursuit à Buenos Aires à la recherche de cette dernière. Et sa vie prend bientôt un cours étrange quand il se persuade de deux phénomènes extraordinaires : la réincarnation de sa maîtresse dans une autre femme et la découverte, dans le mari de celle-ci, de son propre double... Avec ce roman puzzle qui offre la possibilité d'une lecture linéaire ou "butineuse", Julio Cortazar invente le roman interactif. Faisant preuve d'un talent novateur dans la construction du récit, multipliant les perspectives narratives et chamboulant la chronologie, l'auteur argentin fait acte de création, offrant au roman une nouvelle dimension. Marelle constitue sans aucun doute son oeuvre maîtresse et est considéré comme l'un des ouvrages les plus importants de la littérature hispano-américaine moderne. --Hector Chavez

"They looked and knew. That laid the claim. They were not animals."

A young girl spends her summer vacation in a country house where a tiger roams . . . A man reading a mystery finds out too late that he is the murderer's victim . . . In the fifteen stories collected here—including "Blow-Up," which was the basis for Michelangelo Antonioni's film of the same name—Julio Cortazar explores the boundary where the everyday meets the mysterious, perhaps even the terrible. Axolotl House taken over Distances Idol of the Cyclades Letter to a young lady in Paris Yellow flower Continuity of parks Night face up Bestiary Gates of heaven Blow-up End of the game At your service Pursuer Secret weapons.

In these eight masterpieces there is no room for the smallest sign of stumbling or youthful undertones: they are perfect. These stories that speak about objects and daily happenings, pass over to another dimension, one of nightmare or revelation. In each text, surprise and uneasiness are ingredients added to the indescribable pleasure of its reading. These stories may upset readers due to a very rare characteristic in literature: They stare at us as if waiting for something in return. After reading these true classics, our opinion of the world cannot remain the same. 1. "Casa Tomada" ("House Taken Over") 2. " Carta a una señorita en París" (Letter to a Young Lady in Paris") 3. "Lejana" ("The Distances") 4. "Ómnibus" ("Omnibus") 5. "Cefalea" ("Headache") 6. "Circe" ("Circe") 7. "Las puertas del cielo" ("The Gates of Heaven") 8. "Bestiario" ("Bestiary")

Los reyes (1949) es el primer libro publicado por Cortázar con su verdadero nombre. Se trata de un poema dramático donde el autor propone una curiosa variante del mito del Ariadna no está enamorada de Teseo sino del monstruo que habita en el centro del laberinto, y lo que pretende es que el Minotauro escape sirviéndose del famoso "hilo" que llevará Teseo. Gran conocedor de la estructura cerrada y fatal de los mitos griegos, Cortázar se las ingenia para que la historia tenga igualmente el desenlace a pesar de las intenciones de su amada el monstruo elige morir a manos de Teseo. Ésta obra de rara belleza logra el prodigio de cumplir con la tradición al tiempo que la trasgrede. Y con su serena y clásica luminosidad ocupa un lugar de excepción dentro de la riquísima obra literaria del gran escritor argentino.

The short story itself