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The Eternaut by Héctor Germán Oesterheld My rating: 4 of 5 stars Though The Eternaut only appeared in an English translation in 2015, it is often considered one of the central texts in the canon of Latin American comics and graphic novels, a work of the stature of—in other national or linguistic traditions—Maus or Watchmen,… Continue reading Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López, The Eternaut
[This post combines my Goodreads reviews of both volumes of Alack Sinner, The Age of Innocence and The Age of Disenchantment.] Alack Sinner: The Age of Innocence by Carlos Sampayo and José Muñoz My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Age of Innocence is the first of two American omnibus collections of the noir graphic novels… Continue reading José Muñoz and Carlos Sampayo, Alack Sinner
Ema, the Captive by César Aira My rating: 4 of 5 stars Reading and rereading Wilde over the years, I note a fact that his panegyrists seem not even to have suspected: the elementary and demonstrable fact that Wilde is nearly always right. —Jorge Luis Borges, "On Oscar Wilde" (trans. Esther Allen) Art never expresses… Continue reading César Aira, Ema, the Captive
Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature by Jorge Luis Borges My rating: 4 of 5 stars This recent volume (published by New Directions, translated by Katherine Silver, and edited and annotated by Martín Hadis and Martín Arias) is derived from student recordings and transcriptions of a lecture course on the history of English literature… Continue reading Jorge Luis Borges, Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature
How I Became a Nun by César Aira My rating: 3 of 5 stars To recap, following on from my review of the brilliant An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, César Aira is a prolific Argentine avant-gardist who writes fiction through a method he refers to as a "flight forward": he creates… Continue reading César Aira, How I Became a Nun
An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by César Aira My rating: 5 of 5 stars This short but grand 2000 novella, seemingly regarded as its prolific author’s masterpiece, is the story of the titular painter, the real-life German landscape artist, Johan Moritz Rugendas, as he suffers a life-altering accident on the Argentine… Continue reading César Aira, An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter
