The Gates of Paradise

by Alberto Manguel

A collection of 35 stories by critically acclaimed writers that illuminates the infinite variety of erotic experience. Among the classic and contemporary tales are "Desire and the Black Masseur" by Tennessee Williams, "The Slut of the Normandy Coast" by Marguerite Duras, and "Wicked Girl" by Isabel Allende.

Genres: Erotica, Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Anthologies

689 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Alberto Manguel (born 1948 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine-born writer, translator, and editor. He is the author of numerous non-fiction books such as The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (co-written with Gianni Guadalupi in 1980) and A History of Reading (1996) The Library at Night (2007) and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: A Biography (2008), and novels such as News From a Foreign Country Came (1991).

Manguel believes in the central importance of the book in societies of the written word where, in recent times, the intellectual act has lost most of its prestige. Libraries (the reservoirs of collective memory) should be our essential symbol, not banks. Humans can be defined as reading animals, come into the world to decipher it and themselves.

Reviews

[Dallas]

I got through the first 4 stories & weren't really impressed. I skipped ahead to D.H. Lawrence's story & was still disappointed. Guess this wasn't for me.

[Yuri]

This book is like a pair of dirty socks, one Adidas and one Chantelle.

Can you spay, 'Milk Is Very Good For You", by Stephen Dixon, was an entertaisting story?