A Study in Ugliness & Outras Histórias by H. Pueyo

A paradoxical description, but one that will make sense to whoever has the pleasure of reading this book.

The result is a collection that feels simultaneously refreshing, impactful, at times hard to digest - and, contradictorily, always fun to read. Beyond the themes, the stories also explore different attitudes towards form, construction, language and narrative. Pueyo's creativity is not confined to the themes of the stories, even though the subject and setting choices reveal the wide net of her authorial interest. In that sense, I feel privileged, as a bilingual person, to be able to experience the stories in both languages.īesides the sheer coolness of the edition itself, though, the true heart of this book are the stories themselves, of course. You'd think, for example, that stories more deeply tied with Latin-American history would by default read better in a Latin-American language, but that's not always the case sentences gain different weight and rhythm in different languages, and the result are stories that shine like multi-faceted gems. The bilingual edition puts the different versions of the text side by side, and it gives the reader a very rich opportunity to gain some insight into just how similar and different the same story feels in each language. The first thing about this book is just really how cool it is.

A Study in Ugliness & Outras Histórias by H. Pueyo