My Christina and Other Stories (Graywolf Short Fiction Series) [Paperback]

Mercè Rodoreda (Author), David H. Rosenthal (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Graywolf Short Fiction Series | Publication Date: January 1, 1984

My Christina & Other Stories

Years after her death, Mercè Rodoreda's work is enjoying a well-deserved renaissance. The seventeen stories that comprise this volume vary tremendously in tone and style, from the hallucinatory to the bleakly realistic, from tales of tenderness and love to stories that might best be called folktales, reality merged with dream.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The humor in the stories, as well as their thrill of realism, comes from a Nabokovian precision of observation and transformation of plain experience into enchanting prose."--Todd Crespi, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A compelling stylist, well translated, with passages of stunning imagery in virtually every story."--Kirkus Reviews

"Mr. Rosenthal's translation is top-flight and does justice to some of the best prose that has been written in Spain in the modern era."--Gregory Rabassa, The New York Times

Language Notes

Text: English, Catalan (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press (January 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915308657
• ISBN-13: 978-0915308651
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,937,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars The Dona od Catalan Literature, November 28, 2009

By 

Jeremy Holland "Jeremy Holland" (Barcelona, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Christina and Other Stories (Graywolf Short Fiction Series) (Paperback)

For anyone interested in Catalan literature a good place to start is with this book. A female writer who first came to prominence during the first part of the twentieth century, she fled Barcelona following the civil war and settled in Geneva until the death of Franco.

The collection is a series of seventeen short stories written predominately in a monologue style that characterizes her work and ranges from slice of life tales to ones that are more surrealist in nature (a witch who turns into a salamander for example), with most containing a wry humor common in these parts. There is also an underlying melancholy which is explained in the forward written by David Rosenthal. Unlike the more well-know Zafón, they don't so much describe what Barcelona was like aesthetically in those times, but they do provide a glimpse into the life here through rich characters and a keen sense of observation.