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Sleeping Dragons
Baudoin’s beguiling portrayals of day-to-day lives belie the unsettling feeling of things unseen and unsaid, and on the verge of falling apart. In the title story, a pregnant woman on an eco-adventure to escape a recent break-up finds herself heading towards an even murkier future. In "Mengele in Love," a chambermaid in a hotel reminisces about her lost love for a previous resident. As Alberto Manguel observes in his introduction "each story takes a situation to unexpected extremes, and the endings are always surprising and subtly justified."
- GenresFictionShort Stories
144 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 2018
29 people want to read
About the author
Magela Baudoin
14 books26 followersEscritora, periodista y docente universitaria boliviano, reside en Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Bolivia) desde 2005. Fundadora, coordinadora y profesora del Diplomado en Escritura Creativa de la Universidad Privada de Santa Cruz (UPSA), es autora del libro de entrevistas Mujeres de Costado (Plural, 2010), del libro de cuentos La composición de la sal (Plural, 2014) con el que ganó el Premio de cuento García Márquez 2015 y su primera novela El sonido de la H, con el cual ganó el Premio Nacional de Novela 2014 (Santillana Bolivia).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 13, 2018
These stories sounded intriguing, and whilst I liked some of them, the collection felt a little disappointing. They are easy to read, and I liked the chatty narrative style, but something unfortunately felt lacking throughout.
April 14, 2025
These were nice enough, definitely a writer to revisit, though I liked the first story the most and then my enthusiasm for this book progressively sort of tapered off.
October 12, 2022
I'm back with another intriguing and evocative short story collection. This one introduced me to Bolivian author Magela Baudoin, published in English for the first time. I was looking for that mildly unsettling feeling, the sense that something isn't quite right or could go wrong at any time. And Sleeping Dragons delivered! Thanks to Timothy Schaffner and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the delay!
What I loved most about the stories in Sleeping Dragons is, as I mentioned above, that unsettling unsurety, the uncanny feeling that something isn't right, that everything could wrong in a moment, that violence is looming. And despite this, none of these stories have great shock value. They are deeply human stories, full of the tragedy and joy that is a human life. No story perhaps summarises that better than 'A Buenos Aires Summer Sonata' in which human connection occasionally gets interrupted by cockroaches emerging from every nook and cranny. Light and dark, joy and sadness, it's all a part of a human life. As one of her characters in this story says 'it's inevitable, you have to live with the ugly side of life.' Considering that this story collection willingly looks at that ugly side, it nonetheless also holds a lot of beauty and fascination.
As with most collections, not every story hits home equally. However, I must say that each story in Sleeping Dragons ended up intriguing me in their own specific way. Take the story 'Moeba', in which a female journalist enters a prison looking for a story and finds something very different. Has her life changed now, or are some things inevitable? Can release be found in a prison, or is it just a delay of execution? Do her experiences make her a better person or no? This was one of my favourite stories in the collection. 'The Red Ribbon' features another journalist, recounting a murder-case she has just written about. Narrated by her sister, who has had her own share of troubles and knows her sister deeply, we come to see that even in writing a story you may lose power. There is a cost to her job and Baudoin shows us that cost. Very different in nature are stories like 'Love at First Sight' in which a woman is sucked into the orbit of her girlfriend's chronically disorganised life. Is there still love there? Is it inevitable that they'll move in together, buy a house together, grow old together, or do they have a choice in these matters? Perhaps the most shocking story in the collection is 'Mengele in Love'. Maria works at a beautiful hotel as a cleaner, and her manager has just kissed her. Initially her thoughts on this seem kind of romantic, as if it is a secret love affair. In her thoughts she speaks to Arami, a friend from her younger years, who, like Maria, also fell under the charm of a German doctor. From there, as the title suggests, it gets worse. By the end, the reader has a completely different understanding of Maria, but also of her current situation. I found this a quietly powerful story about trauma and abuse, about lingering trauma specifically that we try to deny. Sleeping Dragons is a collection that holds all kinds of stories, about all kinds of people, all of whom are on the bring of something, a memory, an event, a break-down, a departure.
This was my first introduction to Magela Baudoin's writing and I do also think Sleeping Dragons may be my first foray into Bolivian literature. There is something about Baudoin's writing style which feels very conversational. Even when she covers difficult topics, it almost feels like you're sitting down for a chat with a friend. Not that it feels gossip-y, but there is something intimate and guileless about the prose that belies its complexity. As I said above, despite the heavy topics she describes Baudoin never sets out to shock or scandalise. She wants to create an empathy, perhaps, a connection between these people and her readers, and through her style she is able to create that connection. In his introduction, Alberto Manguel calls it 'tje most apparent frakness', which allows readers to 'sense behind her words a dark retincence, unconfessed motives and secret reasons, people and places whose name Baudoin would rather not remember'. The openness in the prose belies the conflicts and difficultness at the heart of these stories. Each one leaves you with the knowledge that there is much more, that the fight that was averted will happen tomorrow, that the friendship forged now may not last, that the desperate flight for freedom may just end in another gilded cage. This doesn't make Sleeping Dragons sound very cheerful, perhaps, but hopefully it does impress how this collection is important.
The stories in Sleeping Dragons each took hold of me in a different way. The candor of the writing belies the complexity of the stories being told, each of which is deeply human in its darkness and light.
URL: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/...
What I loved most about the stories in Sleeping Dragons is, as I mentioned above, that unsettling unsurety, the uncanny feeling that something isn't right, that everything could wrong in a moment, that violence is looming. And despite this, none of these stories have great shock value. They are deeply human stories, full of the tragedy and joy that is a human life. No story perhaps summarises that better than 'A Buenos Aires Summer Sonata' in which human connection occasionally gets interrupted by cockroaches emerging from every nook and cranny. Light and dark, joy and sadness, it's all a part of a human life. As one of her characters in this story says 'it's inevitable, you have to live with the ugly side of life.' Considering that this story collection willingly looks at that ugly side, it nonetheless also holds a lot of beauty and fascination.
As with most collections, not every story hits home equally. However, I must say that each story in Sleeping Dragons ended up intriguing me in their own specific way. Take the story 'Moeba', in which a female journalist enters a prison looking for a story and finds something very different. Has her life changed now, or are some things inevitable? Can release be found in a prison, or is it just a delay of execution? Do her experiences make her a better person or no? This was one of my favourite stories in the collection. 'The Red Ribbon' features another journalist, recounting a murder-case she has just written about. Narrated by her sister, who has had her own share of troubles and knows her sister deeply, we come to see that even in writing a story you may lose power. There is a cost to her job and Baudoin shows us that cost. Very different in nature are stories like 'Love at First Sight' in which a woman is sucked into the orbit of her girlfriend's chronically disorganised life. Is there still love there? Is it inevitable that they'll move in together, buy a house together, grow old together, or do they have a choice in these matters? Perhaps the most shocking story in the collection is 'Mengele in Love'. Maria works at a beautiful hotel as a cleaner, and her manager has just kissed her. Initially her thoughts on this seem kind of romantic, as if it is a secret love affair. In her thoughts she speaks to Arami, a friend from her younger years, who, like Maria, also fell under the charm of a German doctor. From there, as the title suggests, it gets worse. By the end, the reader has a completely different understanding of Maria, but also of her current situation. I found this a quietly powerful story about trauma and abuse, about lingering trauma specifically that we try to deny. Sleeping Dragons is a collection that holds all kinds of stories, about all kinds of people, all of whom are on the bring of something, a memory, an event, a break-down, a departure.
This was my first introduction to Magela Baudoin's writing and I do also think Sleeping Dragons may be my first foray into Bolivian literature. There is something about Baudoin's writing style which feels very conversational. Even when she covers difficult topics, it almost feels like you're sitting down for a chat with a friend. Not that it feels gossip-y, but there is something intimate and guileless about the prose that belies its complexity. As I said above, despite the heavy topics she describes Baudoin never sets out to shock or scandalise. She wants to create an empathy, perhaps, a connection between these people and her readers, and through her style she is able to create that connection. In his introduction, Alberto Manguel calls it 'tje most apparent frakness', which allows readers to 'sense behind her words a dark retincence, unconfessed motives and secret reasons, people and places whose name Baudoin would rather not remember'. The openness in the prose belies the conflicts and difficultness at the heart of these stories. Each one leaves you with the knowledge that there is much more, that the fight that was averted will happen tomorrow, that the friendship forged now may not last, that the desperate flight for freedom may just end in another gilded cage. This doesn't make Sleeping Dragons sound very cheerful, perhaps, but hopefully it does impress how this collection is important.
The stories in Sleeping Dragons each took hold of me in a different way. The candor of the writing belies the complexity of the stories being told, each of which is deeply human in its darkness and light.
URL: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/...
December 22, 2021
I love Bolivia. I am obsessed. So when I get a chance to read anything Bolivian, I jump on it. Some of the stories are set in La Paz, which I think is one of the most amazing and odd cities in the world.
The stories are literary. Which means some of them go like this:
There's a boy and his grandfather and they have a conversation and nothing happens, the end.
It's about atmosphere, not plot. That's what they'll tell you. As someone who went through a university creative writing program, I've read a lot of literary stories and I have to admit that I hate them. I particularly dislike books of short stories.
Characters are introduced, an event is described, things just get started, and then the story is over. And we are on to the next characters, next event, things are just getting started, and then it's all over too. Stories often strike me as superficial, pretentious, feigning depth in a few pages.
None of the stories in this book have changed my opinion of short fiction.
Many of these stories feel rushed. Some are fun. There's one about the famous prison in La Paz, and how tourists used to be welcome to visit inside and hang out with criminals.
Occasionally the language felt mangled and odd. Which made me wonder if it was the translation that was at fault.
It's an okay book of stories and I read it and it's over.
The stories are literary. Which means some of them go like this:
There's a boy and his grandfather and they have a conversation and nothing happens, the end.
It's about atmosphere, not plot. That's what they'll tell you. As someone who went through a university creative writing program, I've read a lot of literary stories and I have to admit that I hate them. I particularly dislike books of short stories.
Characters are introduced, an event is described, things just get started, and then the story is over. And we are on to the next characters, next event, things are just getting started, and then it's all over too. Stories often strike me as superficial, pretentious, feigning depth in a few pages.
None of the stories in this book have changed my opinion of short fiction.
Many of these stories feel rushed. Some are fun. There's one about the famous prison in La Paz, and how tourists used to be welcome to visit inside and hang out with criminals.
Occasionally the language felt mangled and odd. Which made me wonder if it was the translation that was at fault.
It's an okay book of stories and I read it and it's over.
November 4, 2018
Sleeping Dragons is a collection of short stories that very quickly and directly dig into different South American cultural situations. From experiencing the highs and lows from a short stint of life in the slums of Buenos Aires to the rape and murder of a young indigenous refugee. Amazingly these stories pack a whole lot of detail to grasp you attention, and leads you to unexpected places in a very short amount of time...a literary rollercoaster. Thank you Netgallery for the opportunity to read review an advanced reading copy of Sleeping Dragons in exchange for my honest review.
November 7, 2018
Most stories are pretty short in this book, and most were fairly dark. Some definitely left me wondering what the point of the story was, but I often feel like short stories are more about mood than plot. Overall I liked the book, but it's not in my top ten favorite story collections.
November 10, 2018
Wonderful, understated yet absorbing. The first story really blew me away. The others were good -- not consistently amazing, but all quite strong.
February 27, 2023
Around-the-world #144: Bolivia 🇧🇴.
A set of short stories, modern in their approach, some of which are memorable, others less so.
A set of short stories, modern in their approach, some of which are memorable, others less so.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews