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Winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature and a three-time International Booker Prize finalist, the Argentine author of Fever Dream once again proves herself a master of the uncanny. In her new collection, Good and Evil and Other Stories, ordinary lives tilt toward menace and tenderness as characters stumble at the brink of tragedy or revelation.

Praise for Good and Evil and Other Stories

"The stories of Good and Evil are 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." — Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times Book Review

"[Schweblin] looks at the world directly, piercing its deceptive surface, allowing the reader to do the same. . . Such directness and clarity of language opens a unique emotional terrain where fear and compassion conjoin." — Sam Byers, The Guardian

"Here are six strong doses of the unheimlich, from a remarkable writer. Schweblin is descended from David Lynch and indeed Kafka, but her voice remains entirely her own." — Francesca Segal, Financial Times

"Each entry is more luminous and shocking than the last. This establishes Schweblin as a master storyteller." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[A] doyenne of speculative fiction depicts characters and situations that straddle pleasure and the uncanny, a 21st-century Twilight Zone." — Boston Globe

"Nestled perfectly between realistic human tragedy and surrealism, her writing consistently lays bare the interior motivations and fears that threaten to lead us toward monstrosity. At its core, Good and Evil is a collection about aging and what we owe to ourselves and our youth; another triumph from Schweblin." — Chicago Review of Books

Read on for an excerpt from the book.

WELCOME TO THE CLUB

I jump into the water from the end of the pier and sink down, holding my nose. After the initial impact I open my eyes, surrendering to the fall as it grows softer, and to the colors all around me that seem new, denser, and more iridescent. I descend, holding my breath.

Maybe a minute passes. Finally, slowly, my feet touch the mossy ground, like I’m an astronaut landing on the moon. I let go of my nose and lower my arms, and my body tenses up. A contraction comes from my lungs, a spasm, and I wait a little longer. I touch the rocks tied to my waist; the knot can always be untied. Perhaps to keep from changing my mind, I inhale. I fill my chest with water and a new, hard cold hits my ribs. I want this to happen painlessly. A dozen bubbles escape from my mouth and nose and rise upward. Another spasm suddenly wracks me and I’m afraid of what might happen now. I let out my remaining air. I’m struck by the liquid feeling where there was always oxygen before, but above all I’m struck by how lucid I feel. How calm. I look at my hands, larger and whiter than they were above-water, and wonder how long it will take to lose consciousness. Algae, schools of silvery eyes, plankton floating like glitter. My body feels loose, and an extraordinary sensation arises from the contact with warm currents, cool ones, warm again. In the distance, the lake floor grows murky. How much time has passed? Three minutes, five—it’s something I no longer know how to calculate. I was sure this would happen faster.

I touch the rocks, feeling for the knot. I’m not changing my mind; at this point, what’s done is done. It’s curiosity. I untie the rope and the rocks fall away. Their impact causes an earthquake near my feet, which slowly lift off the ground. I stay there, sort of floating, unsure what to do. And it’s then, at that moment, when I remember thinking, What if this is it? To float and wonder for the rest of eternity: the first real fear I have that day. To be unable to move forward or backward, ever again, in any direction.

I curl up, kick against the ground to push upward. What was it that went wrong? I’m trying to understand. For a moment ascending seems easy, but after a few feet my body stops, comfortable in its levitation. It takes a while to return, to finally reach the more crystalline warmth of the surface. Will I breathe again when I emerge from the water?

Excerpted from Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell. Published September 2025 by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Samanta Schweblin. English translation copyright © 2025 by Megan McDowell.

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