Edgar Brau

Edgar Brau was born in 1958 in Resistencia, Argentina. To date he has published thirteen collections of poems and short fiction. English translations of his fiction have appeared in The Literar...

Andrea G. Labinger

Andrea G. Labinger is Professor of Spanish, at California's University of La Verne. She translates prose fiction from Latin America and among her numerous published translations are works by Sabina Berman, Edgar Brau, Carlos Cerda, Mempo Giard...

Donald A. Yates

Joanne M. Yates

Casablanca and Other Stories

Edgar Brau

 Edited by

Andrea G. Labinger

Donald A. Yates

Joanne M. Yates

"...haunting."
-Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

Edgar Brau, one of the most exciting South American writers to emerge in the past twenty years, debuts his first English-language collection with the publication of Casablanca and Other Stories. The fiction of Edgar Brau draws not only upon the rich literary heritage of his native Argentina but also upon the body of work that has now rightly been formed into a South American canon, embracing those such as Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Marquez, and Isabelle Allende. He brings a unique perspective to his narratives — narratives forged in the political and social upheaval that has been modern South America. Employing a fantasy-like aspect that goes beyond magical realism, his work is reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe in his use of atmosphere as an additional character. These short stories signal a new era, much as the publication of Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths in 1962 heralded a coming-of-age for his generation.


Translated by Donald A. Yates, Andrea Labinger, and Joanne M. Yates, this collection includes stories from two of Edgar Brau’s collections—El poema y otras historias and Tres cuentos—to bring to a fresh audience the very best new work of a major Argentinean author.

Reviews

"For the first time in English, the Argentine labyrinths of Edgar Brau...For an Argentine writer, the influence of Borges must be hard to resist, and many of the pages in Casablanca call to mind the epistemological vertigo, that mix of the real and fantastic, so characteristic of the older master. Brau's stories, though, don't feel like imitations so much as further explorations of the same geography of the imagination. Most of them are quite haunting." -Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World

- The Washington Post

"These brilliant and haunting stories, superbly translated...will introduce American readers to a contemporary Argentine fiction writer of startling power and subtlety, a writer whose stories it is no overstatement to mention in the same breath with those of Poe and Borges. Prospective readers of this book have a real treat in store." — John T. Irwin, Decker Professor in the Humanities, Johns Hopkins University