Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Collected Stories brings together many of Gabriel García Márquez's spellbinding short stories, each brimming with a blend of the surreal, the magical, and the everyday that Nobel-Prize-winner and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude Márquez is known for.
Sweeping through crumbling towns, travelling fairs and windswept ports, Gabriel García Márquez introduces a host of extraordinary characters and communities in his mesmerizing tales of everyday life: smugglers, bagpipers, the President and Pope at the funeral of Macondo's revered matriarch; a every old angel with enormous wings, stranded in a young couple's back garden; a town plagued by dying birds that fall from the sky and an awestruck village captivated by a beautiful drowned sailor. Teeming with the magical oddities for which his novels are loved, Márquez's stories are a delight.
'These stories abound with love affairs, ruined beauty, and magical women. It is essence of Márquez' Guardian
'Of all the living authors known to me, only one is undoubtedly touched by genius: Gabriel García Márquez' Sunday Telegraph
'It becomes more and more fun to read. It shows what "fabulous" really means' Time Out
Marquez writes in this lyrical, magical language that no-one else can do
—— Salman RushdieA haunting and beautiful collection that deserves to be read slowly and savoured but which you won’t be able to put down.
—— Caroline Jowett , Daily ExpressMasterly… A spiritual, haunting book.
—— Francesca Angelini , Sunday TimesBurnside’s prose glitters.
—— Leyla Sanai , Independent on SundayBurnside brings a poet’s linguistic precision and emotional acuity… The writer’s deep, bloody engagement with the stuff of life can't fail to leave the reader enlivened, and keen to feel more.
—— Hannah McGill , Scotland on SundayEach [story] is a perfectly pitched, perfectly weighted gem.
—— Paul Dunn , TimesBurnside’s sentences flow with a music and logic that is inevitable yet compelling and display the keenest ear for life.
—— Ben Felsenburg , MetroThere is much familiar Burnside landscape here – the harsh beauty of dune-grass and headland, the casual and deadly knifing in the pub, the domestic violence… Magical.
—— Margaret Drabble , SpectatorFor those unacquainted with his sublimely terrifying oeuvre, this is the place to start… Violence simmers under the surface of every story, breaking out in the kind of stark detail that becomes unforgettable.
—— Stuart Kelly , GuardianJohn Burnside’s career is among the more remarkable in contemporary literature… Even his most routine stories have beauty and intelligence: he is never less than something like brilliant.
—— Robert Hanks , TelegraphExpect elegant prose to counterpoint the gritty themes.
—— Elle DecorationVery sharp, penetrating short stories; some of the best I’ve read for a while.
—— William Leith , Evening StandardThere is little that the poet, novelist and short story writer Burnside cannot turn his hand to, and this collection simply exemplifies his tremendous talent… Both disturbing and yet perfectly structure, these stories embody something of the modern condition in their glimpses of ordinary people's lives.
—— Lesley McDowell , Independent on SundayAll the customary satisfactions of Burnside's writing – anomie, menace, flashes of violence and cruelty, hallucination and snow – but multiplied.
—— Sunday TelegraphEven Burnside’s most routine stories have beauty and intelligence. He is never less than something like brilliant.
—— Daily TelegraphA tremendous collection from a writer working at the full tilt of his gifts.
—— Kevin Barry , Ormskirk Advertiser