The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira - Softcover

Aira, César; Silver, Katherine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811219992 ISBN 13: 9780811219990

Publisher: New Directions, 2012

Synopsis

Aira's latest concerns a reluctant but powerful doctor who finally decides to use his healing powers to help a hopeless patient.

César Aira’s newest novel in English is not about a conventional doctor. Single,in his forties, and poor, Dr. Aira is a skeptic. His personality ― his weaknesses,whims, and pet peeves ― is summed up in a series of digressions and regressions but he has a very special gift for miracles. He no longer cares about miracles,however, and has no faith in them. Perhaps he is even a little ashamed about his supernatural powers. Such is Dr. Aira, who also has to confront his arch-enemy― chief of the Pinero Hospital, Dr. Actyn ― who is constantly trying to prove that Dr. Aira is a charlatan. Poor Dr. Aira is indeed a worker of miracles, but César Aira ― the magesterial author ― sends the very human doctor stumbling toward the biggest trap of all, in this magical book.

About this title

About the Author:

Nominated for a Neustadt award and the Man Booker International Prize, César Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, in 1949. He has published at least one hundred books and recently created a limited edition, “Valise,” for the Museum of Modern Art, NYC. 

KATHERINE SILVER is an award-winning liter- ary translator and the codirector of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre (BILTC). Her translations include works by Ce´sar Aira, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Jose´ Emilio Pacheco, Elena Poniatowska, Jorge Franco, and Marti´n Ada´n, among others.

Review:

“Aira's literary significance, like that of many other science fiction writers, comes from how he pushes us to question the porous line between fact and fantasy, to see it not only as malleable in history, but also blurred in the everyday. The engrossing power of his work, though, comes from how he carries out these feats: with the inexhaustible energy and pleasure of a child chasing after imaginary enemies in the park.”
- Los Angeles Review of Books

“César Aira's is a fine short book, imaginative and entertaining, but finally and essentially, it's not about the size, it's about the transmogrified truths, the art of the prose and its necessity.”
- Bookslut

“César Aira’s novels are the narrative equivalent of the Exquisite Corpse, that Surrealist parlor game in which players add to drawings or stories without knowledge of previous or subsequent additions. Wildly heterogeneous elements are thrown together, and the final result never fails to surprise and amuse.”
- The Millions

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0811219992
• ISBN 13: 9780811219990
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 88