En Barcelona, una prostituta que va entrando en la vejez entrena su perro a llorar ante la tumba que ha escogido para sí misma. En Viena, una mujer se vale de su don de ver el futuro para convertirse en la adivina de una familia rica. En Ginebra, el conductor de una ambulancia y su esposa acogen al abandonado y aparentemente moribundo ex presidente de un país caribeño, sólo para descubrir que sus ambiciones políticas siguen intactas.
En estos doce relatos magistrales acerca de las vidas de latinoamericanos en Europa, García Márquez logra transmitir la amalgama de melancolía, tenacidad, pena y ambición que forma la experiencia del emigrante.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortunetelling position with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-President of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact.
In these twelve masterly stories about the lives of Latin Americans in Europe, García Márquez conveys the peculiar amalgam of melancholy, tenacity, sorrow, and aspiration that is the émigré experience.
"Full of strange relish at life's oddness... García Márquez's sheer ability to hold and and enthrall makes [STRANGE PILGRIMS] fascinating and memorable."--The New York Times Book Review
The twelve stories in this shimmering collection from the author of
One Hundred Years of Solitude and
Love in the Time of Cholera feature Latin American characters adrift in Europe. A bereaved father comes to Rome for an audience with the Pope, carrying a box the shape and size of a cello case. An aging streetwalker waits for death in a Barcelona apartment with a dog she has trained to weep at her grave. A panic-stricken husband takes his wife to a Parisian hospital for the treatment of a cut finger and never sees her again. Combining terror and nostalgia, surreal comedy and the poetry of the commonplace, STRANGE PILGRIMS is a triumph of narrative sorcery by one of our foremost magicians of the written word.
"García Márquez remains one of the most entertaining writers in the world, as well as one of the best . . . If his early worked showed the influence of Faulkner, then these latests stories unavoidably call to mind the sleek, well-made, psychologically sharp tales of Somerset Maugham . . .STRANGE PILGRIMS is an altogether ingratiating book." --The Washington Post.
"García Márquez at his best. With a surreal phrase or a magic image, he allows us to see reality, grave and comic at once, in a unique light."--Los Angeles Times Book Review
