The Word of the Speechless: Selected Stories

Available in English for the first time, a collection of deeply humane stories depicting marginalized populations by one of the greatest South American writers of the 20th century.

The Peruvian writer Julio Ramón Ribeyro is one of the masters of the short story and a major contributor to the great flourishing of Latin American literature that followed the Second World War. In a letter to an editor, Ribeyro said about his stories, “in most of [them] those who are deprived of words in life find expression—the marginalized, the forgotten, those condemned to an existence without harmony and without voice. I have restored to them the breath they’ve been denied, and I’ve allowed them to modulate their own longings, outbursts, and distress.” This is work of deep humanity, imbued with a disorienting lyricism that is Ribeyro’s alone. The Word of the Speechless, edited and translated by Katherine Silver, introduces readers to an indispensable and unforgettable voice of Latin American fiction.

Julio Ramón Ribeyro (1929–1994) was a Peruvian writer of short stories, novels, essays, and plays. He was considered to be a master of the short story, and his works are known for mixing social criticism and fantasy. Riberyo was the author of eight volumes of short stories, including Los gallinazos sin plumas (“Featherless Buzzards,” 1955). He lived most of his life in France, and made brief returns to Peru. 
 
Katherine Silver is an award-winning literary translator and the co-director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre (BILTC). She has translated works by Daniel Sada, César Aira, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Ernesto Mallo, and Carla Guelfenbein, among others. She lives in Berkeley, California. 

Alejandro Zambra is a Chilean poet and the author of four novels and a collection of short stories.