The Names of the Things That Were There: Stories

(Paperback)

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A collection of the best short stories by the author of the unforgettable novel The Postman. Each of the stories in this book is an extraordinary piece of literature. Love, youth, desire, and freedom, coupled with versatile prose, sensitivity, and a subtle irony that sometimes morphs into dark humor, confirm Antonio Skarmeta's position as one of the greatest storytellers in contemporary literature. Juan Villoro has selected and written a prologue for this collection, originally published in five books that influenced an entire generation of writers and brought about a renewal of Latin American prose.

Reviews

Stories as if written by an angel, but an angel full of earthiness and sex. Ariel Dorfman, author of The Suicide Museum

Antonio Skrmetais a fierce, tender, graceful genius. His stories enrapture, seize the soul, and shake it awake. Full of surprises and perfectly placed revelations that feel like an angels introduction, his stories unravel exquisitely.Skrmetais a master of narrative, and his work is essential to any reader.Jennifer Maritza McCauley, author of When Trying to Return Home

Praise for Antonio Skrmeta:

Wonderfully quirky. New York Times Book Review

There is a simple charm to Skrmetas writing. The Independent

Skrmeta treats his characters with a tender hand and, with impressive economy, balances dark humor with a sober and realistic portrait of a stagnant culture whose people are always longing for something better. Publishers Weekly

[Skrmeta] exhibits [a] master touchThe beauty of the telling offsets the sadness and desolation of small-town life, and the confusions and revelations that Skrmeta describes are common to us all.Library Journal

Skrmeta, an adept craftsman, uses spare but forceful prose to tell a storya testament to the clarity and beauty of his writing. Each carefully chosen word rings true. Los Angeles Review

Author Bio

Antonio Skarmeta is a Chilean author who wrote the novel that inspired the 1994 Academy Award-winning movie, Il Postino- The Postman. His fiction has received dozens of awards and has been translated into nearly thirty languages. In 2011 his novel The Days of the Rainbow (Other Press, 2013) won the prestigious Premio Iberoamericano Planeta-Casa de America de Narrativa. His play El Plebiscito was the basis for the Oscar-nominated film No. Curtis Bauer is a poet and translator of prose and poetry from Spanish. He is the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant and a Banff International Literary Translation Centre fellowship. His translation of Jeannette Clariond's Image of Absence won the International Latino Book Award for Best Nonfiction Book Translation from Spanish to English. Bauer teaches creative writing and comparative literature at Texas Tech University.