The Things We Don't Do - Softcover

Andrés Neuman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782270736 ISBN 13: 9781782270737

Publisher: Pushkin Press, 2014

Synopsis

'Here's the world for you, son, clean and cruel, fragrant and rotten, sincere and deceiving, give it to me new, come on, run'

Playful, philosophising and gloriously unpredictable, Andrés Neuman's short stories consider love, lechery, history, mortality, family secrets, therapy, Borges, fallen nuns, translators and storytelling itself.

Here a relationship turns on a line drawn in the sand; a chaste poet and a drunken womaniser swap places; a discovery in a secondhand shop takes on a cruel significance; a man decides to go to work naked one day. In these small scenes and brief moments Neuman confounds our expectations with dazzling sleight of hand.

These stories - the first ever collection of Neuman's in English - are told with a voice that is wry, questioning, sometimes mordantly funny yet always generously humane.

Andrés Neuman was born in Buenos Aires in 1977, and grew up and lives in Spain. The son of Argentinian émigré musicians, he has published numerous novels, short stories, essays and poetry collections. Pushkin Press also publishes his novels Talking to Ourselves and Traveller of the Century, which won the Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

About this title

Product Description:

Inspired by Borges and Cortazar, and echoing Vila Matas and Zarraluki, Neuman regards both life and literature's big subjects - identity, relationships, guilt and innocence, the survival of extreme circumstances, creativity and language - with a quizzical, philosophical eye. Shining from the page with both irony and mortal seriousness, these often tragicomic 'stories of ideas' vacillate between the touching and the absurd, in the best tradition of Spanish storytelling. This is the first ever English collection of Andres Neuman's short fiction, containing thirty-five short stories and four sets of 'Twelve Rules for a Storyteller'. Andres Neuman was born in Buenos Aires in 1977, and grew up and lives in Spain. The son of Argentinian emigre musicians, he has published numerous novels, short stories, essays and poetry collections. Pushkin Press also publishes his novels Talking to Ourselves and Traveller of the Century, which was awarded the Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize, and shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Review:

'This is writing of a quality rarely encountered... when you read Neuman's beautiful novel, you realise a very high bar has been set' Guardian

'Neuman has a discerning eye for the foibles of human existence and yet an unwavering compassion for, and understanding of, them' Elif Shafak

'[The collection shows] Neuman's restless spirit of invention, and... his commitment - all the more striking in so ambitious a novelist - to exploring the bottomless possibilities of the short story form' TLS

'Delivering deceptively straightforward takes on faith, mortality and love with sour irony and humour, Neuman reflects on contemporary life's honest moments with warmth and candour' Monocle

'Language springs from the page vitally, and each word finds its place in the story... What sustains throughout the book is the skill with which the very best short fiction writers are endowed; the ability to twist these amusing stories into something quite dark with the turn of a phrase... The Things We Don't Do is an entertaining and profound collection which makes the reader consider the world in a new light' Booktrust

'Neuman is one of the rare writers who can distill the most complex human emotions with apparent effortlessness. Bolaño's prophecy seems to have come true: Andrés Neuman has transcended the boundaries of geography, time, and language to become one of the most significant writers of the early twenty-first century' --Music and Literature

About this edition

• Publisher: Pushkin Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1782270736
• ISBN 13: 9781782270737
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176