ABOUT THIS BOOK

Augusto Monterroso is widely known for short stories characterized by brilliant satire and wit. Yet behind scathing allusions to the weaknesses and defects of the artistic and intellectual worlds, they show his generous and expansive sense of compassion.

This book brings together for the first time in English the volumes Complete Works (and Other Stories) (Obras completas [y otros cuentos] 1959) and Perpetual Motion (Movimiento perpetuo 1972). Together, they reveal Monterroso as a foundational author of the new Latin American narrative.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Augusto Monterroso is the internationally renowned author of nine books, including The Black Sheep and Other Fables. A resident of Mexico since 1956, he won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, Mexico's highest literary honor, in 1975.

Edith Grossman is an award-winning translator of contemporary Latin American literature. Her recent publications include Strange Pilgrims and Of Love and Other Demons, by Gabriel García Márquez, and Maqroll and The Adventures of Maqroll, by Alvaro Mutis.

REVIEWS

Monterroso is certainly the leading living Guatemalan writer. . . . His microcuentos are finely honed, highly ironic, sophisticated pieces which are both very good literature and excellent pedagogical devices. I would liken his short stories to some of Borges' more accessible ones, with the added dimension of political commitment.

— Cynthia Steele, author of Politics, Gender, and the Mexican Novel, 1968-1988: Beyond the Pyramid

Sophisticated wit and playful surrealist fantasy dominate these ingenious and gently mocking tales, by a Guatemalan-born soul mate to the late Jorge Luis Borges. This first English translation of Monterroso’s work offers the contents of his two published collections, Complete Works and Other Stories (1959) and Perpetual Motion (1972). They’re a monument, if that isn’t the wrong word, to this entertaining author’s trademark ‘concision and wit.’

— Kirkus Reviews

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Before and After Augusto Monterroso by Will H. Corral
Complete Works (And Other Stories)
- Mister Taylor
- One Out of Three
- Finished Symphony
- First Lady
- The Eclipse
- Diogenes Too
- The Dinosaur
- Leopoldo (His Labors)
- The Concert
- The Centennial
- I Don’t Want to Deceive You
- Cow
- Complete Works
Perpetual Motion
- Flies
- Perpetual Motion
- It’s All the Same
- Regarding Attributions
- Homage to Masoch
- The World
- The Brain Drain
- The Endymion Report
- I Know You, Mask
- The Advantages and Disadvantages of Jorge Luis Borges
- Fecundity
- You Tell Sarabia That I Said He Should Hire Her and Place Her Here or Wherever, That I’ll Explain Later
- Homo Scriptor
- Under Other Wreckage
- How to Stop Being a Monkey
- How I Got Rid of Five Hundred Books
- The Maids
- Solemnity and Eccentricity
- Winning the Street
- Humor
- Paradise
- It May Be True
- Living Together
- Height and Poetry
- Christmas. New Year’s. Whatever
- Choose One
- Ever-Present Danger
- The Outdoor Poet
- Tender Rose
- Brevity
- Errata and Final Notice