Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Translator’s Acknowledgments
• BESTIARY
  • Prologue (1957)
  • The Rhinoceros (1958)
  • The Toad (1951)
  • The Bison (1959)
  • Birds of Prey (1959)
  • The Ostrich (1959)
  • Insectiad (1951)
  • The Water Buffalo (1959)
  • Felines (1959)
  • The Bear (1959)
  • The Owl (1959)
  • The Elephant (1959)
  • Moles (1951)
  • The Camel Family (1959)
  • The Boa (1955)
  • The Hippopotamus (1958)
  • The Zebra (1959)
  • The Giraffe (1959)
  • The Hyena (1958)
  • Deer (1959)
  • The Seals (1958)
  • Water Birds (1959)
  • Monkeys (1959)
  • The Axolotl (1960)
• PROSODY
  • Alarm for the Year 2000 (1961)
  • Homage to Otto Weininger (1960)
  • Post Scriptum (1960)
  • Telemaquia (1960)
  • Inferno V (1959)
  • Allons Voir si la Rose (1961)
  • The Language of Cervantes (1959)
  • The Trap (1960)
  • Disarmed Gentleman (1959)
  • From L’osservatore (1961)
  • Either Or (1959)
  • Achtung! Lebende Tiere! (1957)
  • Liberty (1951)
  • The Encounter (1952)
  • The Last Wish (1959)
  • Imaginary Woman (1951)
  • Epithalamium (1951)
  • Elegy (1951)
  • A Theory on Dulcinea (1951)
  • Metamorphosis (1959)
  • Flower of Ancient Rhetoric (1951)
  • Flash (1955)
  • The Diamond (1951)
  • Honeymoon (1955)
  • The Map of Lost Objects (1955)
  • Mad with Love (1951)
  • Gravity (1951)
  • The Cave (1952)
  • Others’ Possessions (1955)
• CONFABULARIO
  • Parturient Montes (1953)
  • I’m Telling You the Truth (1951)
  • Interview (1949)
  • The Rhinoceros (1950)
  • The Bird Spider (1949)
  • Figment of a Dream (1949)
  • A Reputation (1952)
  • The Switchman (1951)
  • The Disciple (1950)
  • Eve (1949)
  • The Assassin (1949)
  • Small Town Affair (1952)
  • The Song of Peronelle (1950)
  • Autrui (1951)
  • Sinesius of Rhodes (1952)
  • Monologue of the Man Who Won’t Give In
  • Epitaph (1950)
  • The Prodigious Milligram (1951)
  • Cocktail Party (1959)
  • Aristotle’s Lay (1950)
  • The Condemned One (1951)
  • My Daily Bread (1952)
  • Notes Full of Rancor (1950)
  • Nabonides (1949)
  • You and I (1959)
  • The Lighthouse (1949)
  • In Memoriam (1952)
  • Balthasar Gérard, 1555–1582 (1955)
  • Baby H.P. (1952)
  • Announcement (1961)
  • On Ballistics (1952)
  • News Item from Liberia (1959)
  • A Tamed Woman (1954)
• VARIOUS INVENTIONS
  • Ballad (1952)
  • The Convert (1944)
  • A Pact with the Devil (1942)
  • Paul (1947)
  • Parable of the Exchange (1953)
  • Letter to a Shoemaker (1945)
  • God’s Silence (1943)
  • The Fraud (1946)
  • The Crow Catcher (1949)
  • Private Life (1947)
  • He Did Good While He Lived (1941)

About the Author

Juan José Arreola (1918–2001) was a Mexican writer and academic. He is considered Mexico’s premier experimental short story writer of the twentieth century.