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Book Cover for: The Little Buddhist Monk & the Proof, César Aira

The Little Buddhist Monk & the Proof

César Aira

Reader Score

73%

73% of readers

recommend this book

The Little Buddhist Monk is a story of Asian invention gone wild, as a diminutive Korean Buddhist monk acts as a tour guide to an increasingly distraught French couple on a working vacation in the Far East. The Proof brings us quickly back to the West, where two punks, plus a new recruit ("Wannafuck?" is the opening line as the two punk lesbians accost the chubby and shy Marcia on a quiet street in Buenos Aires), take control of a local supermarket with dire consequences for the hostages. These two Aira works are as different as night and day. Nevertheless, sex, identity, and modern day economics figure deeply in both of these fast-paced, edgy fictions.

Book Details

  • Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
  • Publish Date: May 30th, 2017
  • Pages: 224
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 6.90in - 4.90in - 0.70in - 0.35lb
  • EAN: 9780811221122
  • Categories: LiteraryAbsurdist

About the Author

Caistor, Nick: - Nick Caistor is a translator, editor, and author. He has written a biography of Octavio Paz and has translated the works of José Saramago, Paulo Coelho, and Julián Ríos, among others.
Aira, César: - CÉSAR AIRA was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. He taught at the University of Buenos Aires (about Copi and Rimbaud) and at the University of Rosario (Constructivism and Mallarmé), and has translated and edited books from France, England, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Mexico, and Venezuela. Perhaps one of the most prolific writers in Argentina, and certainly one of the most talked about in Latin America, Aira has published more than 100 books to date in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and Spain, which have been translated for France, Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Romania, Russia, and the United States. One novel, La prueba, has been made into a feature film, and How I Became a Nun was chosen as one of Argentina's ten best books. Besides essays and novels Aira writes regularly for the Spanish newspaper El País. In addition to winning the 2021 Formentor Prize, he has received a Guggenheim scholarship, and was shortlisted for the Rómulo Gallegos prize and the Booker International Prize.

Praise for this book

New novellas from Aira are always a cause for celebration.--Brian Evenson "Big Other"
Irreverent inventiveness ... without analogue in contemporary literature.--Megan Doll "San Francisco Chronicle"
Uncanny imagination à la Calvino.--Laura Pearson "The Chicago Tribune"
Cesar Aira is wild. The laws of gravity do not apply.--James S.A. Correy "The Denver Post"
South America's answer to Haruki Murakami.--Andrew Irvin "The Miami Herald"
Aira delivers one surreal unraveling of reality after another that proceeds paradox by paradox into psychic realms.--Michael Upchurch "The Seattle Times"
Aira continues to surprise and delight in his latest release from New Directions, which collects two novellas...There are a number of similarities to be sure--they both revolve around the sudden but intense relationship between three characters, they both take place over the course of less than twenty-four hours, they are both, at turns, wildly funny.-- "Three Percent Review" (8/8/2017 12:00:00 AM)
Aira's novels parody narrative form, destroy normal cause and effect, and contain bold conceptual dialogues.--Michael Eaude "Times Literary Supplement"