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, free-wheeling account of Oliveira's astonishing adventures....

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 stories collected here -- including "Blow-Up;' on which Antonioni based his film -- Julio Cortazar explores the boundary where the everyday meets the mysterious, perhaps even the terrible. This is the most brilliant and celebrated book of short stories by a master of the form....

A group of random people receives notice that they have won a cruise. Once they become passengers onboard the Malcolm, they find themselves tangled in the web of a mystery that is as symbolic as it is ludicrous. The feeling of detachment from ones normal life, typical of vacation cruises, motivates the travelers to undertake the search to resolve the enigma. The enthusiasm and freedom with which the characters dive into the game, and risks they take could only come from the imagination of one writer: Cortzar.

Spanish Description:
Los pasajeros que se embarcan en el Malcolm para un crucero de placer se ven envueltos en un misterio que tiene tanto de alegorico como de disparate colosal. La ilusion de un corte con la vida anterior, propia de los viajes, incita a este grupo de hombres y mujeres a lanzarse a la exploracion del enigma y al conocimiento mutuo. Y lo hacen con el aplicado entusiasmo de un juego, con la libertad y el riesgo que solo Cortazar sabe concederle a sus personajes....

Diary of Andres Fava is all reflection: on his reading, his dreams, conversations and writing. This unpredictable journal is peppered with quotes from French poets and American jazzmen. Bemused and melancholy, erudite and searching, this irreverent gem is full of autobiographical winks at the reader and hints at themes and techniques Cortazar would continue to explore.

Julio Cortazar is one of the true giants of twentieth-century Latin American literature. Innovative, irreverent, playful and haunting, Cortazar's writing pushes at the boundaries of expression and makes accomplices of his readers.

Anne McLean's translation of Javier Cercas' Soldiers of Salamis won the 2004 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Premio Valle Inclan....

Published on the 25th anniversary of the author s death, this work is an extensive assortment of writings and unedited texts written throughout Cortazar s life. Grouped in three sections following a rough internal chronology: poems, prose and self-interviews, the writings include unknown short stories and different versions of published ones, unedited stories of Cronopios and famas, episodes on Lucas, a torn chapter from A Manual for Manuel, speeches, prologues, critiques, journalistic texts, poems, portraits of personalities, and chronicles of trips. The texts in prose, which constitute the majority of the volume, have been further grouped by similarity: short narratives, essays mainly of political and ideological content, commentary on other artist s productions, and undeniably masterful yet completely unclassifiable pages. Edited by a wise and loving hand, this book gives rise to an extraordinary reunion with Julio Cortazar in all his multiple facets the formal writer in the making of 1938, the brilliant short-story teller, playful and committed, the sharp music and art critic, the journalist, the poet.

Description in Spanish: "Esta obra, que se publica a los veinticinco anos de la muerte de su autor, es una extensa miscelanea de textos ineditos y dispersos escritos a lo largo de toda la vida de Cortazar. Estos han sido agrupados en tres bloques que siguen una cronologia interna aproximada: poemas, prosas y autoentrevistas. Los textos en prosa, que constituyen la mayoria, aparecen reagrupados por afinidades: esta la narrativa breve; los textos de circunstancia, generalmente de contenido politico e ideologico; los que comentan la obra de otros artistas; paginas inclasificables de innegable atractivo. Tenemos aqui cuentos completamente desconocidos, versiones diferentes de cuentos publicados, historias ineditas de cronopios y de famas, episodios de Lucas, un capitulo desgajado del Libro de Manuel, discursos, prologos, criticas, textos periodisticos, poemas, estampas de personalidades y cronicas de viaje. Amorosa y sabiamente editado, este libro permite un reencuentro extraordinario con Julio Cortazar, en todas sus multiples facetas. El Cortazar formal y en ciernes de 1938, el cuentista genial, el ludico, el comprometido, el sagaz critico de musica y artes plasticas, el cronista, el poeta. Papeles inesperados, cuya publicacion es un verdadero acontecimiento literario, es para los innumerables lectores de Cortazar, para los estudiosos de su obra, para los periodistas culturales, para todos aquellos interesados en la figura de un hombre y un escritor que cambio para siempre la literatura en lengua espanola....