All Fires the Fire

by Julio Cortázar, Suzanne Jill Levine

Overview

“One of the most adventurous and rewarding collections since the publication of Cortázar’s own Blow-up.” —Los Angeles Times

A traffic jam outside Paris lasts for weeks. Che Guevara and Fidel Castro meet on a mountaintop during the Cuban Revolution. A flight attendant becomes obsessed with a small Greek island, resulting in a surreal encounter with death. In All Fires the Fire, Julio Cortázar (author of Hopscotch and the short story “Blow-Up” ) creates his own mindscapes beyond space and time, where lives intersect for brief moments and situations break and refract. All Fires the Fire contains some of Julio Cortázar’s most beloved stories. It is a classic collection by “one of the world’s great writers” (Washington Post).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811229463
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	04/28/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	443 KB

About the Author

Julio Cortázar (1914-1984), Argentine novelist, poet, essayist, and short-story writer, was born in Brussels, and moved permanently to France in 1951. Cortazar is now recognized as one of the century's major experimental writers, reflecting the influence of French surrealism, psychoanalysis, and his love of both photography and jazz, along with his strong commitment to revolutionary Latin American politics.
Suzanne Jill Levine is a leading translator of Latin American literature, and professor at the University of California in Santa Barbara where she directs a Translation Studies doctoral program.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/24/2020

In this playful and scintillating set of fabulist tales by Argentine master Cortázar (1914–1984), characters are shuffled through shifting realities. In “The Southern Thruway,” a makeshift community forms among drivers on a highway as a traffic jam outside Paris keeps them stuck on the road for weeks. The characters form relationships and assume leadership positions, but everyone loses track of each other as soon as the traffic begins to move. In “The Other Heaven,” the narrator moves seamlessly between time periods, leaving his humdrum life in 1940s Argentina to roam the Paris arcades of the 19th century, enjoying “grog at the café on the Rue des Jeûneurs,” “the theaters on the boulevard,” and the company of Josiane, a prostitute living in a “dime-novel garret.” The collection’s standout title story juxtaposes a Roman gladiatorial contest with a failing relationship in mid-century France, suggesting echoes and connections between apparently disparate lives. Cortázar’s predilection for patterns is voiced by the narrator of “Meeting,” who compares a Cuban revolutionary comrade to Mozart, both men seeking “an order” that will lead to “a victory that might be like the restoration of a melody.” Cortázar fans will devour these affecting stories. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"He was, perhaps without trying, the Argentine who made the whole world love him."

Gabriel García Márquez

"I’m permanently indebted to the work of Cortázar."

Roberto Bolaño

"Anyone who doesn’t read Cortázar is doomed."

Pablo Neruda