Samanta Schweblin is the author of the novel, Fever Dream, a
finalist for the Man Booker International Prize and her first book
translated into English. She was chosen as one of the twenty-two
best writers in Spanish under the age of 35 by Granta and is on the
Bogotá39-2017 list. Her stories in Spanish have won numerous
awards, including the prestigious Juan Rulfo Story Prize, and in
English have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and elsewhere.
Her work has been translated into twenty languages. Originally from
Buenos Aires, she lives in Berlin.
Megan McDowell has translated books by many contemporary
South American and Spanish authors, and her translations have been
published in The New Yorker, Harper's, The Paris Review,
McSweeney's, Words Without Borders, and Vice, among other
publications. She lives in Chile.
"Schweblin is among the most acclaimed Spanish-language writers of
her generation.... [H]er true ancestor could only be David Lynch;
her tales are woven out of dread, doubles and confident loose
ends.... What makes Schweblin so startling as a writer,
however, what makes her rare and important, is that she is impelled
not by mere talent or ambition but by vision, and that vision
emerges from intense concern with the world, with the
hidden cruelties in our relationships with all that is vulnerable —
children, rivers, language, one another." —New York Times
"The author’s flair for intertwining surrealism with delicate
emotionality is again on full display in Mouthful of Birds, a
collection of short stories that sit somewhere between miniature
mysteries and fairy tales. In this slim and superb book, Schweblin
takes on the desire to love, to parent, and to care for one’s own
body—hardly extraordinary themes—and invests them with a fresh
poignancy." —Vogue
"Admirers of Schweblin's work will be delighted to learn that she
hasn't lost any of the atmospheric creepiness that made Fever
Dream such an unsettling ride. Mouthful of Birds, is just as
ethereal and bizarre as its predecessor, and it proves that
Schweblin is a master of elegant and uncanny
fiction.... Schweblin is gifted at treating the otherworldly
with a matter-of-fact attitude, writing about the surreal as if it
were unremarkable.... And her writing, beautifully translated
by Megan McDowell, is consistently perfect; she can evoke more
feelings in one sentence than many writers can in a whole story.
Fans of literature that looks at the world from a skewed point of
view will find much to love in Schweblin's book, and so will anyone
who appreciates originality and bold risk-taking. Mouthful of
Birds is a stunning achievement from a writer whose potential
is beginning to seem limitless." —NPR
“[T]he stories cumulatively summon a world in which the civilized
is constantly receding and to be a human is to live in a state of
desperation.” —The New Yorker
"Strange and beautiful." —Tommy Orange, The Guardian
"Chilling.... confirm her as a master of the macabre.... [T]his
collection of short stories brings to life vivid worlds of terror
and unease. Her particular genius lies in the fact that
there’s something inherently savage and ungovernable about her
work: each of these eerie, shocking stories crouches like a tiny
feral beast, luring you in with false promises of docility, only to
then sideswipe you with sharpened claws and bared
fangs." —Financial Times
"Surreal, disturbing, and decidedly original.” —Library
Journal, starred review
"Schweblin once again deploys a heavy dose of nightmare fuel in
this frightening, addictive collection…canny, provocative, and
profoundly unsettling." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"The Grimm brothers and Franz Kafka pay a visit to Argentina in
Samanta Schweblin’s darkly humorous tales of people who have
slipped through cracks or fallen down holes into alternate
realities." —JM Coetzee
"The way Schweblin writes is luxurious, and also incredibly
direct.... One of the routine pleasures of Schweblin’s
storytelling, in both Fever Dream and in these stories,
is getting swept up in her mad effects. While each story immerses
and orients the reader, it also keeps them guessing.... While
Schweblin executes each narrative move with propulsive confidence,
as though of course it would not go any other way, it is also
impossible to guess where a Schweblin story is going. One of the
greatest effects of Schweblin’s writing is the sensation of having
a trapdoor kicked open in your own mind — of not knowing this weird
space even existed, but of course. There you are." -- Los Angeles
Review of Books
"Schweblin's imagination seemingly knows no
bounds.” —Refinery29
“Like her previous work and her award-nominated novel Fever
Dream, Mouthful of Birds blurs the line between what is
reality, what is fantasy, and what is madness.” —Bustle
“Schweblin is back with this book of short stories, each more
unnerving than the last, and all with the unique ability to leave
you with that throbbing, pulsing feeling following an electric
shock or a sleepless night or a solid scare or all of the
above.” —Nylon
"Schweblin builds dense and uncanny worlds, probing the psychology
of human relationships and the ways we perceive existence and
interpret culture, with dark humor and sharp teeth. An assemblage
of both gauzy and substantial stories from an unquestionably
imaginative author." —Kirkus Review
"Intense… [has] a visceral effect as Schweblin navigates the
extremes of her characters’ actions and thoughts, both healing and
destructive.” —Booklist
“In simple, uncluttered prose, these stories manage to dismantle
society’s accepted norms then prompt you wonder how to navigate
morality without them and question why we ever accepted them in the
first place.” —Broadly
"[E]xplores the delicate line between real life and fantasy to
devastating effect.... Each story’s disorienting effect lies
in its ability to waver between the concretely real and the hazily
unreal. There’s a sense of the paranormal—rather than the magic—at
play." —Paste
Ask a Question About this Product More... |