Author(s): Silvina Ocampo

Short Stories | Translated fiction | Argentina

Fantastical, unnerving short stories from a Surrealist master of the form. Whimsical and sinister, each story by Silvina Ocampo is like a knife of spun sugar that can still pierce between your ribs. A thief breaks into the house of a psychic with disastrous results, a bride has her personality subsumed by the previous occupant of her home, and two men switch destinies for a change of pace. The Impostor offers a comprehensive collection from one of the twentieth century's great forgotten woman writers. Here are tales of doubles and living dolls, angels and demons, a beautiful seer who writes the autobiography of her own death, and much else that is mad, sublime, and delicious. With an array spanning the length of Ocampo's career, these haunting stories are among the world's strangest and best.

With an introduction by Helen Oyeyemi

Author Biography: Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993) studied painting with Giorgio de Chirico and Fernand Leger in Paris, before returning to Buenos Aires. Her first collection of stories, Forgotten Journey appeared in 1937. She was also a prolific poet and translator. Ocampo was reportedly denied Argentina's National Prize for fiction in 1959 after judges decided her work was 'too cruel'.