Las historias de este libro hiriente y sobrecogedor tienen como escenario los pueblos y las tierras del sur de Estados Unidos, especialmente su Georgia natal, un mundo decrépito y en ruinas cuyo secular abandono y pobreza ancestral aparecen marcados por la violencia y el odio. Pero, más allá de la sordidez, los conflictos raciales, el asfixiante peso de la religión y la frustrada lucha por la libertad, hay siempre en los cuentos de Flannery O'Connor una extraña belleza, una íntima exposición moral de la condición humana que trasciende la anécdota.

Comparada a menudo con William Faulkner o Carson McCullers, con quienes forjó lo que se ha llamado el «gótico sureño», Flannery O'Connor es una de las narradoras imprescindibles de la literatura norteamericana del siglo XX.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

This volume is a compilation of all of Flannery O'Connor's stories, both those published during her lifetime and others found after her death - many of them translated into Spanish here for the first time.

Flannery O'Connor's unflinching and tormented prose found its highest expression in the short story, a genre she pursued consistently from her student years until her premature and tragic death.

The breathtaking and disturbing titles presented here are set in the small-town and rural US South, especially the author's home state of Georgia. It is a world in shambles, mired in poverty, where hatred and violence have taken firm hold. Yet, amid the sordidness, racial tensions, suffocating religiosity and frustrated struggle for freedom, O'Connor discovers a strange beauty. Her writing is an intimate portrayal of the human condition that transcends mere storytelling.

Often compared to William Faulkner or Carson McCullers, fellow icons of the so-called "Southern Gothic" style, Flannery O'Connor ranks as one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American literature.