ecent stories for wicked readers

Bilingual edition, Araña Editorial, 2012, translated by Rosie Marteau with the author ... And Anne McLean.

‘A shockingly beautiful innovative voice in which the sublime and laughter are perfectly matched’ Andrew Gallix, The Guardian

‘This collection will come as a total shock to mummy porn fans – E. L. James meets J. G. Ballard! Makes both writing and BDSM dangerous once again. Eat your heart out literary establishment’ Stewart Home

‘Medina writes unglossy fables of strangeness and curiosity in those penumbral regions of the earth visited between memory and conjecture. The sharp and cunning constructions are like the relics out of Borges’s library, bones of unborn stories that honour fate and run beyond prediction. Each is a perfectly wrought performance, presenting not so much strange sights or unknown spectacles but instead elegant mementos of sensual moments we too often pass over either in impertinent silence or baffled fear. Medina unearths the small beauties that we like to rebury. Her stories are exquisite reminders of our weird informal freedoms and the zealousness of an inflamed, sexy imagination. This is a book of wonders’

Richard Marshall, 3: AM Magazine

‘A prose both spare and lush, a commendable tension about the enterprise’ Will Self

‘A collection of eight explosive short stories … Susana Medina’s stories have an alchemical quality, throwing together disparate elements to create tender and terrifying reminders of what it is to be human: the danger and thrill of our appetites and the limits of our reason …’ Joanna Pocock, Litro

‘The everyday worlds of these stories are glamorous & disturbing, compelling & reckless; they are neural maps of consumer surfaces & psychological uncertainties, their inner landscapes demand our attention’ Steve Finbow

‘Medina's writing is both intriguing and involving, probing the margins of narrative as it does, yet still carrying a strong emotional charge. Her subject matter lies in London's demi-monde, and is compelling and often dramatic. This collection will stay with me’ Peter Carty, reviewer for The Independent

‘Her personal profile reveals a writer but most of all a writing.  A singular writing, a unique voice that leads us through a labyrinth that is dark and yet under a luminous sky’ J. A. Masoliver Ródenas, La Vanguardia

‘A tremendously restless vision which relentlessly traverses genres and styles’ Ruben H y Mónica Bergos, Qué Magazine

‘A cult and thoroughbred writer’ Marisol Oviaño, Proscritos

Rosie Marteau took up translating from Spanish after a degree in modern languages and travels in Spain and Latin America. Her previous published work includes Washing Dishes in Hotel Paradise by Eduardo Belgrano Rawson, Hesperus Press 2010. She is currently working on a new translation of work by Argentine author Roberto Arlt.

Anne McLean is a Canadian translator. This twice Independent Foreign Fiction Prize winner is the living proof of the saying "where there is a will there is a way" as she began to learn Spanish in her late twenties and grew familiar with Cervante's tongue while living in Central America. Years later in England she decided to take a Master's Degree in Literary Translation and that is how Anne McLean got to translate works by Julio Cortázar, Susana Medina, Javier Cercas, Evelio Rosero, Juan Gabriel Vázquez, Ignacio Martínez de Pisón and Carmen Martín Gaite, among others. She was awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2009 and 2004 for her translations of Los ejércitos and Soldados de Salamina.