Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist

by Kathleen Alcalá

Book Overview

Compelling short stories, written in the Latin tradition of magical realism This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0934971250
• ISBN13: 9780934971256
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Calyx Books
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

magical realism captured

While for some a bicultural background might be a bother, for Kathleen Alcala it is a blessing. Her Latin-American background has helped her complete a collection of short stories that is both funny, and magical. Her prose is very poetic and captivating, much like other Latin-American author such as Puerto Rico's Rosario Ferre, and of course, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. Each story is short, told by several first-person narrators, all of them struggling to come to terms with strange, funny, sometimes heartbreaking events of daily life, made even more sorrowful by the conflict of trying to deal with two different cultures, each of them striving to be the dominating one. As a collection, each story could be described as a precious individual pearl, capable of standing on its own, but string them all together and you have a stunning necklace. I highly reccomend this book