Ursula K. Le Guin chose to translate this novel which was on the New York Times Summer Reading list and winner of the Prix Imaginales, Más Allá, Poblet and Sigfrido Radaelli awards. This is the first of Argentinean writer Angélica Gorodischer's award-winning books to be translated into English. In eleven chapters, Kalpa Imperial's multiple storytellers relate the story of a fabled nameless empire which has risen and fallen innumerable times. Fairy tales, oral histories and political commentaries are all woven tapestry-style into Kalpa Imperial: beggars become emperors, democracies become dictatorships, and history becomes legends and stories. But this is much more than a simple political allegory or fable. It is also a celebration of the power of storytelling. Gorodischer and translator Ursula K. Le Guin are a well-matched, sly and delightful team of magician-storytellers. Rarely have author and translator been such an effortless pairing. Kalpa Imperial is a powerful introduction to the writing of Angélica Gorodischer, a novel which will enthrall readers already familiar with the worlds of Le Guin.

This is the first of Argentinean writer Angelica Gorodischer's nineteen award-winning books to be translated into English. In eleven chapters, Kalpa Imperial's multiple storytellers relate the story of a fabled nameless empire which has risen and fallen innumerable times. Fairy tales, oral histories and political commentaries are all woven tapestry-style into Kalpa Imperial: beggars become emperors, democracies become dictatorships, and history becomes legends and stories. But this is much more than a simple political allegory or fable. It is also a celebration of the power of storytelling. Gorodischer and translator Ursula K. Le Guin are a well-matched, sly and delightful team of magician-storytellers. Rarely have author and translator been such an effortless pairing. Kalpa Imperial is a powerful introduction to the writing of Angelica Gorodischer, a novel which will enthrall readers already familiar with the worlds of Le Guin. Selected for the New York Times Summer Reading list. * "The dreamy, ancient voice is not unlike Le Guin's, and this collection should appeal to her fans as well as to those of literary fantasy and Latin American fiction." --Library Journal (Starred Review) "There's a very modern undercurrent to the Kalpa empire, with tales focusing on power (in a political sense) rather than generic moral lessons. Her mythology is consistent--wide in scope, yet not overwhelming. The myriad names of places and people can be confusing, almost Tolkeinesque in their linguistic originality. But the stories constantly move and keep the book from becoming overwhelming. Gorodischer has a sizeable body of work to be discovered, with eighteen books yet to reach English readers, and this is an impressive introduction." --Review of Contemporary Fiction "Borges and Cortazar are alive and well." --Bridge Magazine "Those looking for offbeat literary fantasy will welcome Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was, by Argentinean writer Angelica Gorodischer. Translated from the Spanish by Ursula Le Guin, this is the first appearance in English of this prize-winning South American fantasist." --Publishers Weekly "It's always difficult to wrap up a rave review without babbling redundant praises. This time I'll simply say "Buy this Book "" --Locus "The elaborate history of an imaginary country...is Nabokovian in its accretion of strange and rich detail, making the story seem at once scientific and dreamlike." --Time Out New York Kalpa Imperial has been awarded the Prize "Mas Alla" (1984), the Prize "Sigfrido Radaelli" (1985) and also the Prize Poblet (1986). It has had four editions in Spanish: Minotauro (Buenos Aires), Alcor (Barcelona), Gigamesh (Barcelona), and Planeta Emece Editions (Buenos Aires). Praise for the Spanish-language editions of Kalpa Imperial "Angelica Gorodischer, both from without and within the novel, accomplishes the indispensable function Salman Rushdie says the storyteller must have: not to let the old tales die out; to constantly renew them. And she well knows, as does that one who met the Great Empress, that storytellers are nothing more and nothing less than free men and women. And even though their freedom might be dangerous, they have to get the total attention of their listeners and, therefore, put the proper value on the art of storytelling, an art that usually gets in the way of those who foster a forceful oblivion and prevent the winds of change." --Carmen Perilli, La Gaceta, Tucuman "At a time when books are conceived and published to be read quickly, with divided attention in the din of the subway or the car, this novel is to be tasted with relish, in peace, in moderation, chewing slowly each and every one of the stories that make it up, and digesting it equally slowly so as to properly assimilate it all." --Rodo

In eleven chapters, Kalpa Imperial's multiple storytellers relate the story of a fabled nameless empire which has risen and fallen innumerable times.

I the Supreme imagines a dialogue between the nineteenth-century Paraguayan dictator known as Dr. Francia and Policarpo Patiño, his secretary and only companion. The opening pages present a sign that they had found nailed to the wall of a cathedral, purportedly written by Dr. Francia himself and ordering the execution of all of his servants upon his death. This sign is quickly revealed to be a forgery, which takes leader and secretary into a larger discussion about the nature of truth: “In the light of what Your Eminence says, even the truth appears to be a lie.” Their conversation broadens into an epic journey of the mind, stretching across the colonial history of their nation, filled with surrealist imagery, labyrinthine turns, and footnotes supplied by a mysterious “compiler.” A towering achievement from a foundational author of modern Latin American literature, I the Supreme is a darkly comic, deeply moving meditation on power and its abuse—and on the role of language in making and unmaking whole worlds.

When Trafalgar's in town his friends know that even though the coffee might be terrible, the stories will be great.

Locus Recommended Reading Prodigies explores the story of the poet Novalis's birthplace in the German town of Weissenfels after it is converted into a boarding house. Moving, subtle, and full of wit, irony, and dreams, this novel fills the house with the women who lived there throughout the nineteenth century, and across the flow of history constructs the secret drama of their destinies. Praise for Prodigies: "I am so in love with this book I could explode! I want to hug it and pet it and call it George. I knew it would be good, because Small Beer Press publishes the best, but I had no idea how just enchanted I would be with this delightful novel of unusual tenants at a boarding house in the nineteenth century. This book scratched my Muriel Spark/Barbara Comyns itches, with an extra side of the unusual. Originally published in 1994, this is Argentinian writer Gorodischer’s third novel to be translated into English. I will definitely be reading the first two now!” — Liberty Hardy, Book Riot “Put strangers around a common table and you have possibilities, in life and in literature. Thus the driving premise of The Magic Mountain, and thus Argentine novelist Gorodischer’s slender book. . . . Gorodischer writes a poetic, vigorous prose. Her story, dreamlike and start-and-stop, takes effort, for though brief, it is dense—and well worth the trouble.” — Kirkus Reviews "Because of Prodigies' unusual style, it requires great care and thoughtfulness to read. It cannot be rushed through or casually scanned. An impatient reader will abandon this book long before its rich rewards can be reaped. The right audience will have a willingness to savor, to double-back over sentences, to bob along to wherever the author and characters wish to take you. If you are ready for the experience of Prodigies, it is definitely ready for you." — Carmen Maria Machado, NPR "Gorodischer's rhythmic and transparent prose reveals the violence underlying bourgeois respectability. Prodigies is both incisive and incantatory."—Sofia Samatar, author of A Stranger in Olondria "Prodigies, which she considers to be her best novel . . . takes place in Germany in the home of the poet Novalis after his death, and is a humorous and ironic portrayal of the women who passed through that home."—Women and Power in Argentinean Literature Angélica Gorodischer was born in Buenos Aires in 1928 and has lived in Rosario since 1936. She has published many novels and short story collections including Kalpa Imperial, Mango Juice, and Trafalgar, as well as a memoir, History of My Mother. Her work has been translated into many languages and her translators include Ursula K. Le Guin and Alberto Manguel. With certain self-satisfaction she claims she has never written plays or poems, not even at sixteen when everybody writes poems, especially on unrequited love. She received two Fulbright awards as well as many literary awards around the world, including a 2014 Konex Special Mention Award.

A giraffe and a boa constrictor go to sea in a small boat and are swallowed by Solomon Leviathan, the ancient whale who swallowed Jonah and Pinocchio.