Good and Evil and Other Stories

Just stellar - extreme, uncanny and beautifully controlled – Anne Enright, author of The Wren, The Wren Remarkably taut, clear, precise, and yet capable of capturing the extent of our human messiness, these stories are perfect for the times we dwell inside – Colum McCann, author of ApeirogonI’ll be staying at home and reading lots over summer – several books by Samanta Schweblin; I recommend her Good and Evil and Other Stories. She is a fabulous writer. Her stories are subtle, always haunting and deeply human – Isabel Allende, author of The Wind Knows My NameTime and again in her masterful new collection, Schweblin creates characters whose lifelines reach some of the most extraordinary questions ever articulated in our literature – Karen Russell, author of The AntidoteSamanta Schweblin is one of the most exciting writers in the world – George SaundersNo one writes like Samanta Schweblin. Her narratives are sui generis - wonderfully unpredictable and invitingly strange – Lorrie Moore, author of I am Homeless if This Is Not My HomeSamanta Schweblin combines the urgent propulsion that characterizes all great storytelling with precise, if uncanny, descriptions of human feelings that often go unnamed, those ambiguous zones of human reality where awe, dread, and desire mingle – Siri Hustvedt, author of Memories of the FutureThese stories understand the secret moments and strange connections that resonate through a person’s life - and they explore these intimacies with a razor sharp edge. Samanta Schweblin is at the top of her game – Heather Parry, author of Carrion CrowThese beautifully crafted and eerily unsettling stories completely hypnotised me. This is the sort of storytelling which resonates in the head, the heart and all mysterious parts in between. I wish I could write like this – Jan Carson, author of The RapturesSamanta Schweblin has a rare ability to write stories that are more than just stories … She understands the delicate and monstrous music that is shaped from our shadows, from the ghosts we carry within us. That is why to read her is to remember; to read her is to witness, in bewilderment, a miracle made of disturbance and light – Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender is the FleshThese stories grip with a real and disturbing power. Dark currents pulse through Samanta Schweblin’s cool and poised prose in this immaculate translation by Megan McDowell. – Lucy Caldwell, author of These DaysNobody understands the balance of light and darkness of the human mind as well as Samanta Schweblin. She is a master of the edge, of the contour, the suggestion. The most brilliant writer of short stories writing today, she now delivers her most haunting, fierce and provocative book – Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children ArchiveThe atmosphere in these stories, crafted with striking clarity, foreshadows that at some point, everything will go awry, and the effects of that twist will haunt the protagonists forever. These are not ghost stories. They are something far worse and far better: they are stories about human beings – Leila Guerriero, author of La LlamadaA book of finely wrought tales exploring family, grief, love, and longing – The i PaperBravura … standout … eerie and remarkably moving … [you will find yourself] in the space on the other side of terror – a space of openness, fragility and strange reassurance * The Guardian *In prose that shimmers with a sort of menacing lyricism … powerfully evocative and unsettling. They seem to hover, indeed like fever dreams, between the reassuring familiarities of domestic life and the stark, unpredictable, visionary flights of the unconscious. Everything exists in a state of tension, charged with contradictions – Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times Book ReviewSchweblin, a master of the uncanny, keeps us in this kind of ever-shifting gray area between the two poles of her title * The New Yorker *

Samanta Schweblin won the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature for her story collection, Seven Empty Houses. Her debut novel, Fever Dream, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and her novel Little Eyes and story collection Mouthful of Birds have been longlisted for the same prize. Her books have been translated into more than forty languages, and her stories have appeared in English in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, Harper’s Magazine and elsewhere. Originally from Buenos Aires, Schweblin lives in Berlin.

Megan McDowell is a translator from the US, and has collaborated with authors including Alejandro Zambra, Mariana Enríquez and Samanta Schweblin. Her translations have won the National Book Award for Translated Fiction, and have been nominated for the International Booker Prize and the Kirkus Prize. She was the recipient of the 2020 Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She currently resides in Chile.

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