Short stories
Rajatabla
Not translated into English
Luis Britto García · 1970
Synopsis
Seventy-three short texts, which critics divide among political and social satire, science fiction and reflection on art. A photograph portrays an entire generation; a whole life fits on one page, from birth to death, in the list of brands one must consume; elsewhere one reads the recipe for a comet, nightmares of the future, domestic tragedies. In the section on optical illusions, one text asks the reader to underline the right words, and the hidden story is born of their choices.
Context
The collection won the Casa de las Américas short story prize in 1970 and appeared in Havana, where several print runs sold out. Received at first with reserve in Venezuela, where people struggled to classify it, it was taken up in Mexico City by Siglo XXI in 1971 and then reached all of Latin America. Humour and irony there target political repression and violence. A theatre company in Caracas took the book's name and in 1973 staged a play by its author, Venezuela tuya.
Who it is for
Texts that are often very short, in Spanish; a French translation appeared in Caracas in 2010.
Prizes and reception
Awarded a prize in Cuba; more than forty years later, critics still see it as a foundational book, strikingly modern.
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