Short stories
Las armas secretas
Not translated into English
Julio Cortázar · 1959
Synopsis
Five short stories. An Argentine couple settled in Paris remains haunted by an event from before their departure. Mme Francinet, a widow, is hired to look after the dogs during a party. A narrator photographs a scene and interrupts it, and the story loses its way over the meaning of the image. Bruno, a jazz critic, finds the saxophonist Johnny in a wretched hotel room, his instrument lost in the metro. In Paris after the war, Pierre waits for Michèle, who tells him that her parents are leaving the next day.
Context
The author's third story collection, it appeared in Buenos Aires from Sudamericana in 1959, eight years after his move to Paris. The third story inspired Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blow-Up, in 1966, and the fourth pays tribute to jazz and Charlie Parker. Laure Guille-Bataillon translated it at Gallimard in 1963. In English, four of the five narratives appeared only in a 1967 anthology that combines three collections.
Who it is for
Five short stories in Spanish, one of them about a jazz musician; translated into French under the same title.
Prizes and reception
The collection from which Blow-Up comes, taken from its third story, according to encyclopedia.com.
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