Synopses & Reviews
Archived in a folder on award-winning author Alejandro Zambra's desktop are 11 stories of liars and ghosts, armed bandits and young lovers. Intimate, mysterious, and uncanny, these stories reveal a mind that is as undeniably singular as it is universal. Together, they constitute the debut short-story collection from Zambra, whose first novel was heralded as a bloodletting in Chilean literature.”
Whether chronicling the return of a mercurial godson or the disappearance of a trusted cousin, the worlds of these stories are so powerful and deep that the works might better be described as brief novels. My Documents is by turns hilarious and heart-stopping, tragic and tender, but most of all, it is unflinchingly human and essential evidence of a sublimely talented writer working at the height of his powers.
Review
"[These eleven stories are] winningly arch and unusual takes on common household predicaments." Kirkus
Review
Zambras latest is also his best
A truly beautiful book.”
Daniel Alarcón
Full of brilliance. This is a new Latin American literature.”
Mona Simpson
My Documents is an act of literary levitationluminous, magical and profound, written with the mysterious quality of weightlessness.”
Jess Walter
Zambra is so alert to the intimate beauty and mystery of being alive that in his hands a raindrop would feel as wide as a world.”
Anthony Marra
My Documents represents a new form. When I think about Zambra, I feel happy for the future of fiction.”
Adam Thirlwell
Zambra is the author of small classicsshort in length, but enormous in every other way. My Documents elevates him to an entirely new level.”
Valeria Luiselli
Zambra is one of my favorite living writers. He brings such clarity, exactitude, compassion, oddity, and inventiveness to his books that every new volume he publishes goes on my read-this-immediately list.”
Kevin Brockmeier
"[These eleven stories are] winningly arch and unusual takes on common household predicaments."Kirkus
"Zambras stories convey with striking honesty what its like to be Chilean today" Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
"[Alejandro] Zambra continues to portray in his writing the depth of feeling that humans bring forth in each other.
Zambras impeccable style and knowledge of humanity are central to these 11 stories." Booklist
"[Alejandro] Zambra is a direct literary descendant of his older, late compatriot Bolaño.
Zambras work possesses a historical sadness that has no time for the gloss of nostalgia. Its a literature that believes in itself, even when its mired in despair." Bookforum
"Zambra more than delivers with his latest. He's a thoughtful craftsman, brick by brick laying the foundation for works that transcend continents and labels. Let us now forget the smallness of simply spearheading a new Latin American fiction. My Documents goes beyond that, burning brighter than most anything we'd call exceptional, yesterday or today and in any language."NPR
"Sentence-by-sentence pleasure
[Zambra's] most substantial achievement yet." The Seattle Times
"Extraordinary
these pages are animated by candid, familiar voices in whose recollections we become gently imbricated." Words Without Borders
Synopsis
Named a best book of 2015 by NPR, The Boston Globe, and Electric Literature.
My Documents is the latest work from Alejandro Zambra, the award-winning Chilean writer whose first novel was heralded as the dawn of a new era in Chilean literature, and described by Junot Diaz as -a total knockout.- Now, in his first short story collection, Zambra gives us eleven stories of liars and ghosts, armed bandits and young lovers--brilliant portraits of life in Chile before and after Pinochet. The cumulative effect is that of a novel--or of eleven brief novels, intimate and uncanny, archived until now in a desktop folder innocuously called -My Documents.- Zambra's remarkable vision and erudition is on full display here; this book offers clear evidence of a sublimely talented writer working at the height of his powers.
Synopsis
My Documents is the latest work from Alejandro Zambra, the award-winning Chilean writer whose first novel was heralded as the dawn of a new era in Chilean literature, and described by Junot Díaz as a total knockout.” Now, in his first short story collection, Zambra gives us eleven stories of liars and ghosts, armed bandits and young loversbrilliant portraits of life in Chile before and after Pinochet. The cumulative effect is that of a novelor of eleven brief novels, intimate and uncanny, archived until now in a desktop folder innocuously called My Documents.” Zambras remarkable vision and erudition is on full display here; this book offers clear evidence of a sublimely talented writer working at the height of his powers.
About the Author
Alejandro Zambra is a Chilean novelist and poet. He is the author of three novels:
Ways of Going Home, The Private Lives of Trees, and
Bonsai, which was awarded Chiles Literary Critics Award for Best Novel. His writing has also appeared in the
New Yorker, the Paris Review, Tin House, Harpers, and McSweeneys Quarterly Concern, among other places. In 2010, he was selected as one of the Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists by
Granta. He currently teaches literature at the Diego Portales University in Santiago.