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Daunt Books Children's Short Story Competition 2013

South America

• Venezuela
• Colombia
• Guyana
• Ecuador & Galapagos
• Peru
• Bolivia
• Paraguay
• Uruguay
• Chile
• Argentina
• Brazil
• St Helena

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  The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

  Price: £7.99    Add to Basket

  An exquisite, deeply important piece of South American fiction inspired by H. G. Well's novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. At once a love story, a thriller and a vision of the future, Borges wrote of his friend's work, "to classify it as perfect is neither an imprecision nor a hyperbole." This New York Review edition also includes Casares' remarkable modernist illustrations.

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  Papillon by Henri Charriere

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  A classic in prison writing to rival The Count of Monte Cristo, this is the story of Henri Charriere, wrongly committed for murder and sentenced to time in the French penal colony on French Guiana. A story of courage and dogged determination, Charriere refused to be deterred by the brutal conditions and launched a series of unbelievable escape attempts.

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  Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

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  Considered by many to be Joseph Conrad's masterpiece, this story is set in the fictional mining town and port of Costaguana and focuses around the mine owner, Senor Gould, and his supposedly trustworthy employee Nostromo. A brilliantly drawn cast of characters stroll through the pages of this epic as they try to free Costaguana from a destiny of corruption and violence.

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  The Moldavian Pimp by Edgardo Cozarinsky

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  An exotic, musical, yet heart-breaking story about Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, promised a new life in Argentina, only to be sold into prostitution.

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  The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander

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  A glimpse into the horror facing two parents when their son is "disappeared." Englander's descriptions of fruitless appointments in labyrinthine bureaucratic departments are reminiscent of Kafka and equally as maddening.

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  Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras

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  Set in Buenos Aires during the 1970s, a ten year old's gloriously imaginative world is fractured when the military junta begin to threaten the lives of his family.

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  The Honorary Consul by Graham Greene

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  Charley Fortnum, the drunk and slightly ridiculous "honorary consul", is kidnapped by a group of Argentinean guerrillas and while manning the negotiations, a local doctor begins to unravel the large scale corruption on both sides. An intense, powerful and political novel, considered to be one of Graham Greene's very best.

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  Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene

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  Henry Pulling is whisked away from a drab life in English surburbia when he meets his eccentric Aunt Augusta at his mother's funeral. The two embark on a series of bizarre adventures and Henry's life is transformed. Witty, inspiring and typically elegant from Greene.

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  Ashes of the Amazon by Milton Hatoum

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  The epic story of two boys, the orphan Lavo and his rich, artistic friend Mundo. One of the best in a new generation of South American writers, Hatoum recreates the tropical town of his childhood, its sensory beauty, colonial architecture and its stench of decay.

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  Island by Aldous Huxley

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  An intriguing philosophical novel that follows the conflicts faced by cynical journalist Will Farnaby when he visits the paradisiacal, experimental island of Para in the Pacific Ocean.

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  The Dolphin People by Torsten Krol

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  A surreal adventure where two German boys, their mother and their step-father crash in the Amazon jungle and are rescued by a tribe of Yayomi Indians. They adapt to surviving on a currency of stories and myths, until their step-father, a handsome and respected doctor, slowly reveals a darker side.

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  The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto by Mario Vargas Llosa

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  This strange classic from Mario Vargas Llosa tells the story of the erotically charged relationship between Don Rigoberto, his estranged wife Donna Lucretia and his cherubic son Alfonso. A hypnotic fantasy set in bourgeois, contemporary Lima.

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  The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa

  Price: £11.99    Add to Basket

  A remarkable novel, and one of our favourites, Mario Vargas Llosa explores fragmented cultural identities in modern day Peru. Typical of his work, he alternates between realism – the search of a writer for his lost friend – and the bard-like voice of a tribal storyteller recounting the exquisitely poetic myths of the Machiguenga tribe.

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  Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa

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  An entertaining, comic and accomplished masterpiece from Mario Vargos Llosa, which weaves the semi-autobiographical story of a young man who falls in love with his cousin's wife, into episodes from a series of radio soap-operas. Wonderful and exuberant, this is South American fiction at its best.

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  The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa

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  For decades Ricardo has been infatuated with a mysterious, predatory girl who changes her identity like her clothes, a chameleon whom he is destined to love in spite of never knowing her true identity. Following her from Peru to Paris, Ricardo's passionate tale is intoxicating and beautifully-written, although some dedicated fans of Vargas Llosa may find it a bit below his usual astonishing standard.

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  One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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  Based on stories passed down by his family, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's masterpiece is a magical, violent, alternative history of Colombia, played out for us by seven generations of the Buendia family.

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  Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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  In the sleepy, golden city of Cartagena lives Florentino Arizo, an old man who has been in love with Fermina Daza for 51 years, nine months and four days. A passionate story of unrequited love in 19th century Colombia, with just a whiff of decay.

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  Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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  A short, tense and exquisitely-pitched novel constructed like a police statement, which tells the story of the brothers of a young woman, compelled by tradition to kill her lover. Nobel Prize-winning Gabriel Garcia Marquez's powerful indictment of a community trapped by a code of behaviour.

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  The Tango Singer by Tomas Eloy Martinez

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  Bruno Cadogan is on a journey to find the elusive, almost mythical tango singer Julio Martel. As he searches the streets of Buenos Aires, he begins to learn about the singer's past and the history of the city. A hypnotic and evocative thriller.

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  At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen

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  A powerful and tragic novel about two men, one a Christian missionary and one a mercenary, both determined to find the Niaruna Indians of the Amazon jungle.

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  The Buenos Aires Quintet by Manuel Vazquez Montalban

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  Pepe travels to Buenos Aires on a mission to find his cousin Raul, but as he gets nearer to the truth, he is pulled down into the trauma of a city once ruled by a violent military junta. A clever, sophisticated thriller set against a vivid portrait of contemporary Buenos Aires and its recent past.

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  Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda

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  A slim, bilingual volume of hauntingly beautiful love poetry from Nobel Prize-winner Pablo Neruda.

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  Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition by Pablo Neruda

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  A bilingual selection of poetry from Pablo Neruda, the politically indignant, Nobel Prize-winning poet of the Chilean people.

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  Let the Wind Speak by Juan Carlos Onetti

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  Juan Carlos Onetti's somewhat bleak novel tells the story of Medina, a man living in exile, much like Onetti who fled Uruguay after being imprisoned in a mental institution by the military government, who becomes completely obsessed by his old home to the point of bringing about its destruction.

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  The Shipyard by Juan Carlos Onetti

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  Set in the fictional village of Santa Maria, Onetti paints a melancholy, yet evocative picture of decaying Uruguayan society, as a man attempts to rebuild a rundown ship yard. A powerful, ghostly novel considered to be a landmark in South American fiction.