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Crimes
Unexplained blood stains appear in a young couple’s apartment; a disembodied hand is found in a rubbish dump; political prisoners resort to horrific measures in order to make a point.
In this brilliant new collection of stories, Alberto Barrera Tyszka casts an eye on the violence that afflicts Latin America, and in particular its intimate effects on the individuals who suffer and inflict it.
Mixing the surreal with the quotidian, the banal with the unspeakable, Tyszka has created a fragmentary panorama of man’s misdeeds against his own kind. These windingly elliptical stories are ceaselessly surprising, and will bury themselves into your subconscious long after the final page is turned.
In this brilliant new collection of stories, Alberto Barrera Tyszka casts an eye on the violence that afflicts Latin America, and in particular its intimate effects on the individuals who suffer and inflict it.
Mixing the surreal with the quotidian, the banal with the unspeakable, Tyszka has created a fragmentary panorama of man’s misdeeds against his own kind. These windingly elliptical stories are ceaselessly surprising, and will bury themselves into your subconscious long after the final page is turned.
- GenresFictionShort Stories
160 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2009
1 person is currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Alberto Barrera Tyszka
36 books65 followersAlberto José Barrera Tyszka es un guionista, poeta y narrador venezolano.
Se Licenció en Letras por la Universidad Central de Venezuela, de la que es profesor en la cátedra de Crónicas. En la década de los años ochenta participó en los grupos de poesía Tráfico y Guaire. Colaboraciones suyas han aparecido en diversas antologías y publicaciones de España, México, Argentina, Cuba y Venezuela. Articulista habitual desde 1996 en el periódico El Nacional, y colaborador regular en la revista Letras Libres. Guionista de telenovelas en Argentina, Colombia, México y Venezuela. Además, tiene publicadas varias novelas, libros de cuentos y de poesía; junto con la periodista Cristina Marcano es coautor de una biografía sobre Hugo Chávez, que ha tenido gran impacto internacional.
Ha sido traducido al mandarín, francés, inglés e italiano.
Se Licenció en Letras por la Universidad Central de Venezuela, de la que es profesor en la cátedra de Crónicas. En la década de los años ochenta participó en los grupos de poesía Tráfico y Guaire. Colaboraciones suyas han aparecido en diversas antologías y publicaciones de España, México, Argentina, Cuba y Venezuela. Articulista habitual desde 1996 en el periódico El Nacional, y colaborador regular en la revista Letras Libres. Guionista de telenovelas en Argentina, Colombia, México y Venezuela. Además, tiene publicadas varias novelas, libros de cuentos y de poesía; junto con la periodista Cristina Marcano es coautor de una biografía sobre Hugo Chávez, que ha tenido gran impacto internacional.
Ha sido traducido al mandarín, francés, inglés e italiano.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 29, 2024
4☆ — glad i stumbled across this short story collection, i enjoyed the writing style (simple, clear, impactful) and the point that the author sought to convey with each tale.
October 4, 2024
2.5 ⭐️
Fue mejor de lo que esperaba y la verdad no tenía ninguna expectativa. Me sorprendió la forma en cómo escribe el autor y considero que estos 10 relatos cortos fueron una buena manera de empezar a leer a Alberto Barrera Tyszka.
El cuento que más me gustó:
- Perros: Definitivamente no es una historia para personas sensibles, incluso a mí se me hizo perturbador; un hombre con un gusto excéntrico por los perros.
Los perritos son mi animal favorito, entonces leer algo así, me intranquilizó pero me gustó mucho por lo mismo.
Fue mejor de lo que esperaba y la verdad no tenía ninguna expectativa. Me sorprendió la forma en cómo escribe el autor y considero que estos 10 relatos cortos fueron una buena manera de empezar a leer a Alberto Barrera Tyszka.
El cuento que más me gustó:
- Perros: Definitivamente no es una historia para personas sensibles, incluso a mí se me hizo perturbador; un hombre con un gusto excéntrico por los perros.
Los perritos son mi animal favorito, entonces leer algo así, me intranquilizó pero me gustó mucho por lo mismo.
November 3, 2019
I took this out of the Library, looking for a stop-gap crime novel. It was listed as on the Library’s ‘critical list’, meaning ‘in danger of withdrawal’.
Now that I’ve read it, I’m not surprised. It’s not a set of stories that should be shelved under ‘Crime’. The ‘crimes’ of the title are much more than those requiring police forensics and canny detection skills.
A man finds a fresh human hand in an alleyway and the police take very little interest; a bat seems to take revenge on a household who have presided over its partner’s shooting; a one-novel writer teaching creative writing steals a story by a former student who has been shot during an incident on a bus; a man has an affair with his best friend’s wife; a writer who works in a prison with inmates experiences a prison riot and then fails to help his class write letters to the authorities; a 40-year-old woman is watching her critically-ill husband in hospital when his girlfriend tearfully introduces herself.
Such are the understated crimes of this collection, and Tyszka investigates them in terms of the psychological slaps they administer to the victims as well as the psychological quirks of human beings that cause them. And the background to them is contemporary Venezuela (or perhaps Latin America in general?), in which political unrest, disappearances, unemployment and male chauvinism play their parts.
Operating in a magical realism convention (though I have no clear understanding of MR), many of these stories have open endings. I’ve no particular problem with open endings except when I find, even with a second reading, they are so open as to offer me no imaginative hook from which to hang a possible conclusion. Perhaps that’s the point: that one of the rubs of life is that it often does not offer us neatness or clarity and that we are left ‘as on a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, / Where ignorant armies clash by night.’
Not quite my cup of tea, but I enjoyed reading them, and, in spite of my reservations, I liked the way they opened windows into the peculiar relations that can exist between circumstance and personal predisposition, and possible consequent human behaviour. 'There's nowt so odd as folk'.
Now that I’ve read it, I’m not surprised. It’s not a set of stories that should be shelved under ‘Crime’. The ‘crimes’ of the title are much more than those requiring police forensics and canny detection skills.
A man finds a fresh human hand in an alleyway and the police take very little interest; a bat seems to take revenge on a household who have presided over its partner’s shooting; a one-novel writer teaching creative writing steals a story by a former student who has been shot during an incident on a bus; a man has an affair with his best friend’s wife; a writer who works in a prison with inmates experiences a prison riot and then fails to help his class write letters to the authorities; a 40-year-old woman is watching her critically-ill husband in hospital when his girlfriend tearfully introduces herself.
Such are the understated crimes of this collection, and Tyszka investigates them in terms of the psychological slaps they administer to the victims as well as the psychological quirks of human beings that cause them. And the background to them is contemporary Venezuela (or perhaps Latin America in general?), in which political unrest, disappearances, unemployment and male chauvinism play their parts.
Operating in a magical realism convention (though I have no clear understanding of MR), many of these stories have open endings. I’ve no particular problem with open endings except when I find, even with a second reading, they are so open as to offer me no imaginative hook from which to hang a possible conclusion. Perhaps that’s the point: that one of the rubs of life is that it often does not offer us neatness or clarity and that we are left ‘as on a darkling plain / Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, / Where ignorant armies clash by night.’
Not quite my cup of tea, but I enjoyed reading them, and, in spite of my reservations, I liked the way they opened windows into the peculiar relations that can exist between circumstance and personal predisposition, and possible consequent human behaviour. 'There's nowt so odd as folk'.
September 27, 2015
From the author of the brilliant The Sickness (shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize), comes a new collection of 12 short stories, under the simple title of Crimes. What is most engaging about this collection is how Tyszka disseminates the theme of ‘crime’, to fit the moral, political and emotional themes that the stories encapsulate. He experiments with the idea of crime, and how it manifests itself in normal people’s lives and experiences, taking us from the raw human emotion of political dissent and demonstration, to the loss of a child, to the discovery of a disembodied hand, to a strange little tale of a man who bites dogs. Yes. You did read that correctly. Tyszka’s writing is full of subtle nuances, and quite often the raw strength of these tales lays in what he leaves unsaid, leaving significant reader participation at the close of several of the stories. He invites us to compile our own endings and resolutions, having given us the base of the narrative, which makes for an interactive and challenging reading experience. The stories are multi-faceted and surprising, whilst carefully incorporating some razor-sharp commentary on Latin America and its travails. His writing is crisp, uncomplicated, and inherently more powerful because of it, and the translation by Margaret Jull Costa is perfectly in step with his unique writing style. Something different, something challenging, but ultimately entirely rewarding.
Want to read
February 28, 2018"These unsettling stories set surreal horror against a cool disquisition on human nature, their precisely judged effects frequently echoing the great Jorge Luis Borges." Barry Foreshaw, The Independent#
Tyszka has been dubbed the Venezuelan Ian McEwan and that was enough to get me reading him. This is a collection of stories first publsihed in Spain in 2009 and translated in 2015 from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa and I read translations.
Nothing - One morning Silvia and Rafael find drops of blood on the floor of their apartment. I loved the twists in the sotry as they follow the trail of spots, check if their cat has been injured, take it to the emergency vet to check out internal injuries, all without finding the source of the blood. Next they ponder and search for the surviving mate of a bat which had inhabited their apartment, they had shot one and frightened the other off, had it returned? We are then told the back story of how the couple met and ***SPOILER ALERT** their trauma of their dead baby. No Tyszka doesn't take us down the vampire route, nor the ghost route, instead this story ends on the sorryfilled hope of recovery. The finale of the piece is abrupt but is the perfect rendering of the "Nothing" of the title giving hope that this couple will make it through.
Other People's Correspondence This is a truly horrific story but given the historical situation of many in Latin America over the years the issue behind it is not uncommon. The story is told in 3 parts - "Take a good man, an apple and a lot of needles". The man is Federico Aranguren who teaches creative writing in a hugely overcrowded prison. ****SOILER ALERT ***During one class there is a riot and he is trapped in fear of his life, but shielded by his students - he survives still clutching his prompt for their writing exercise, the red apple. When he does not return, they ask that he come back for one final time - he does, and they ask him to write to the authorities on their behalf, he says he will. Does he? Some months later another protest breaks out in the prison. On the TV coverage he recognises some of his students in their roof top protest as they resort to horrific measures in order to make their point about the unacceptable conditions therein and in the judicial process that keeps them there.
A Mexican Story - this was the first piece of writing by Tyszka that I read.This story is available online at the Words without Borders website I reviewed it here and it encouraged me to acquire this collection
Stray Bullets
Dogs
A Sentimental Matter
Famous Writers
Last Night
Why Don't Women Like Porm Movies?
The Open Veins
Tyszka has been dubbed the Venezuelan Ian McEwan and that was enough to get me reading him. This is a collection of stories first publsihed in Spain in 2009 and translated in 2015 from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa and I read translations.
Nothing - One morning Silvia and Rafael find drops of blood on the floor of their apartment. I loved the twists in the sotry as they follow the trail of spots, check if their cat has been injured, take it to the emergency vet to check out internal injuries, all without finding the source of the blood. Next they ponder and search for the surviving mate of a bat which had inhabited their apartment, they had shot one and frightened the other off, had it returned? We are then told the back story of how the couple met and ***SPOILER ALERT** their trauma of their dead baby. No Tyszka doesn't take us down the vampire route, nor the ghost route, instead this story ends on the sorryfilled hope of recovery. The finale of the piece is abrupt but is the perfect rendering of the "Nothing" of the title giving hope that this couple will make it through.
Other People's Correspondence This is a truly horrific story but given the historical situation of many in Latin America over the years the issue behind it is not uncommon. The story is told in 3 parts - "Take a good man, an apple and a lot of needles". The man is Federico Aranguren who teaches creative writing in a hugely overcrowded prison. ****SOILER ALERT ***During one class there is a riot and he is trapped in fear of his life, but shielded by his students - he survives still clutching his prompt for their writing exercise, the red apple. When he does not return, they ask that he come back for one final time - he does, and they ask him to write to the authorities on their behalf, he says he will. Does he? Some months later another protest breaks out in the prison. On the TV coverage he recognises some of his students in their roof top protest as they resort to horrific measures in order to make their point about the unacceptable conditions therein and in the judicial process that keeps them there.
A Mexican Story - this was the first piece of writing by Tyszka that I read.This story is available online at the Words without Borders website I reviewed it here and it encouraged me to acquire this collection
Stray Bullets
Dogs
A Sentimental Matter
Famous Writers
Last Night
Why Don't Women Like Porm Movies?
The Open Veins
June 1, 2018
Violencia a modo de Macguffin para conectar una serie de relatos y la condición de sus personajes ante el vacío existencial, la soledad, la impotencia, la tragedia y demás circunstancia en una sociedad tan inmisericorde con sus individuos como la venezolana
July 12, 2018
Una colección de cuentos para leer poco a poco. Cuentos increíbles que te dejan mudo. Me encantó.
January 10, 2023
No es para mí. Leí un rato, pero no m cautivó. Tiene imágenes chéveres, pero a la vez es bien confuso.
May 10, 2023
Country: Venezuela
October 2, 2024
“La correspondencia ajena”
“Una historia mexicana”
“Balas perdidas”
“Un asunto sentimental”
“Escritores famosos”
“Anoche”
“¿Por qué a las mujeres no les gustan las películas pornográficas?”
“Una historia mexicana”
“Balas perdidas”
“Un asunto sentimental”
“Escritores famosos”
“Anoche”
“¿Por qué a las mujeres no les gustan las películas pornográficas?”
April 7, 2013
Cuentos que desarrollan temáticas de vivencias diarias de la gente común, desde lo rutinario hasta los impulsos escondidos y reservados para momentos únicos. El autor logra destapar en historias relatadas a un ritmo tranquilo, escenas que sacuden el mundo del lector y logran cambiar el sabor del cuento. Los recomiendo, se disfrutan ampliamente. Abril 2013
Want to read
July 31, 2011Hermosa reflexión sobre la soledad, sobre la necesidad del silencio para saber quiénes somos y qué somos...
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews