Narrative
The Daisy Dolls
Las Hortensias
Felisberto Hernández · 1949
Synopsis
Horacio, owner of a clothing shop, has glass cases set up in a room of his house in which life-size dolls compose scenes; employees put them in place, others write the captions that he reads after trying to guess the meaning of each tableau. He has had a doll made in the image of his wife, María Hortensia, and has called it Hortensia; María dresses it in her own dresses. Little by little, Horacio confuses the woman and the doll and orders more dolls from the maker, Facundo.
Context
The story appeared in December 1949 in the journal Escritura. The author began it during his stay in Paris and dedicates it to the woman he married shortly afterwards. Critics hesitate over whether to class it among the short novels or the long stories. The French translation by Laure Guille-Bataillon, with a preface by an Argentine novelist, was published by Denoël in 1975; Luis Harss's English translation appeared in 1993 in Piano Stories. In 2019, the Quay brothers made a film from it, The Doll's Breath.
Who it is for
A long narrative in Spanish, of a quiet strangeness, with scenes that are at times erotic; translated into French and English.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by an encyclopaedia as its author's masterpiece and as a classic of twentieth-century literature.
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