Lands of Memory (New Directions Paperbook) Format: Paperback

A superb fiction collection by the great Uruguayan writer: "If I hadn't read the stories of Felisberto Hernández in 1950, I wouldn't be the writer I am today." ―Gabriel García Márquez

Lands of Memory presents a half-dozen wonderful works by Felisberto Hernández, "a writer like no other," Italo Calvino declared, "like no European or Latin American. He is an 'irregular,' who eludes all classifications and labellings―yet he is unmistakable on any page to which one might randomly open one of his books."

Named a Guardian Best Book of the Year by Alfred Brendel and a TLS Best Book of the Year by Michael Hofmann (who calls Felisberto "a loopier, vegetarian Kafka, inhabiting his mazy personal baroque"), Lands of Memory collects four astonishing stories and the two dreamlike novellas "Around the Time of Clemente Colling" and "Lands of Memory."

Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1902, Felisberto Hernández was a talented pianist, playing in the silent-screen movie theaters when he was twelve years old. He later toured the small concert halls of Uruguay and Argentina. He married four times, published seven books, and died, impoverished, in 1964.

Esther Allen has translated Javier Marias, Jorge Luis Borges, Felisberto Hernandez, Flaubert, Rosario Castellanos, Blaise Cendrars, Marie Darrieussecq, and Jose Marti. She is currently a professor at Baruch College (CUNY) and has directed the work of the PEN Translation Fund since its founding in 2003. Allen has received a Fulbright Grant (1989), a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship (1995), and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (2006).