I get so absorbed by an Aira novel that upon finishing I don’t remember anything. It’s like having a complex cinematic dream that dissipates upon awakening.
— Patti Smith
An offering of five unbelievably daring and masterful novellas from the unstoppable genius César Aira
Five, selected from over 100 untranslated novels and stories by “the Duchamp of Latin America” (Natasha Wimmer), brings together—each an astonishing work—Margarita: A Memory, The Dream, Musical Brushstrokes, Princess Springtime, and The Hormone Pill. Following a cast of dreamlike characters including cyber nuns, a young princess making ends meet as a hack translator, a newspaper vendor, and General Winter and his sadistic sidekick, the Little Christmas Tree, Five shows the many facets of Aira’s master mind as he turns expectations inside-out and gleefully explodes genre conventions.
Five is a must-have for Aira’s legion of devoted fans around the world and a fine introduction to the as-yet uninitiated. A satisfyingly hefty installment from this “exquisite miniaturist” (WSJ) and writer whose “cubist eye sees from every angle” (NYT); because “once you start reading Aira, you don’t want to stop” (Roberto Bolaño).
I get so absorbed by an Aira novel that upon finishing I don’t remember anything. It’s like having a complex cinematic dream that dissipates upon awakening.
— Patti Smith
Sui generis is really the only way to accurately describe César Aira. He’s by turns a realist, a magical realist and a surrealist — and therefore not really any of them. Anything can happen in an Aira novel, and almost everything does.
— Tyler Malone, Los Angeles Times
Astonishing—turns Don Quixote into Picasso.
— Harper's
Aira’s works are like slim cabinets of wonder, full of unlikely juxtapositions. His unpredictability is masterful.
— Rivka Galchen, Harper's
The question Aira poses is whether the unfinished thought, caught in motion, tells us something that the polished, revised, completed thought cannot. Five does not answer that question definitively, but it asks it with enough intelligence, beauty, and daring to make the question feel essential.
