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The Unfortunates, by B.S. Johnson

Introduction by Jonathan Coe

One of the lost classics of the 1960s, and a legendary experiment in form, The Unfortunates is B.S. Johnson's famous "book in a box" in which the chapters are presented unbound, to be read in any order the reader chooses. A sportswriter, sent to a small town on a weekly assignment, finds himself confronted by ghosts from his past when he disembarks at the train station. It is one of the key works of a novelist now undergoing an enormous revival of interest. Click on the pictures for bigger images.

Senselessness, Horacio Castellanos Moya

Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver

A boozing, sex-obsessed writer finds himself employed by the Catholic Church (an institution he loathes) to proofread a 1,100 page report on the army's massacre and torture of thousands of indigenous villagers a decade earlier, including testimonies of the survivors. The writer's job is to tidy it up: he rants "that was what my work was all about, cleaning up and giving a manicure to the Catholic hands that were piously getting ready to squeeze the balls of the military tiger." Publishers Weekly calls Senselessness a "crushing satire," remarking, "It's Moya's genius to make this difficult character seem a product of the same death and disorder documented in the report, as the survivors' voices merge with his own"; and Russell Banks writes, "This is a brilliantly crafted moral fable, as if Kafka had gone to Latin America for his source materials. I've not read anything quite like it. Clearly, Castellanos Moya is a major writer who deserves a wide audience in the U.S."

NOW IN PAPERBACK: Amulet, by Roberto Bolano

Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews

Amulet embodies in one woman's breathtaking voice the melancholy and violent recent history of Latin America. It follows the story of the Uruguayan born Auxilio Lacouture, the "Mother of Mexican Poetry." She becomes famous as the sole person who resists the invasion of Mexico City's university campus by hiding in a ladies' room for twelve days. As she waits out the occupiers with nothing to eat, Auxilio recalls her adventures in exile and the people she has met through them. Now available as a paperbook Amulet keenly demonstrates, as The L.A. Times notes, that Bolano is by far the most exciting writer to have come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time."

NOW IN PAPERBACK: Your Face Tomorrow, Volume II: Dance and Dream, by Javier Marias

Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

Your Face Tomorrow has been acclaimed "exquisite" (Publishers Weekly), "gorgeous" (Kirkus), and "outstanding: anoher work of urgent originality" (London Independent). And now, Dance and Dream takes Javier Marias daring experimental magnum opus out for a wild new ride. Skillfully constructed around a central mesmerizing scene in a nightclub, a scene of real and perplexing horror, Dance and Dream again features Jacques Deza. But in Volume II Deza -- hired by MI6 as a person of extraordinary sophisticated powers of perception -- discovers the dark side of his new employers.
"One of the writers who should get the Nobel Prize is Javier Marias." --Orhan Pamuk

NOW IN PAPERBACK: Massacre River, by Rene Philoctete

Translated, with a Note, by Linda Coverdale

Preface by Edwidge Danticat. Introduction by Lyonel Trouillot

A tale unlike any other, where machetes can fly, severed heads demand justice, the wind thinks its a radio, and a word can literally cut a throat. At the heart of this kaleidoscopic drama is the loving and sensual bond between Pedro and Adele, tenderly evoked in language of astonishing inventiveness by a narrative voice that can turn on a dime, careening through young romance, heartbreak, skin-crawling evil, and Looney Tunes madness to a tumultuous, breathtaking finale worthy of Hieronymus Bosch.
"A tour de force by an extraordinary writer." --Edwidge Danticat

A Coney Island of the Mind - 50th Anniversary Edition, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Includes CD

With a million copies in print and translated into over a dozen languages, A Coney Island of the Mind remains one of the best-selling and most popular books of poetry ever published. The 50th Anniversary Edition comes complete with an audio CD of Mr. Ferlinghetti reading from his seminal work.

Also available in a limited (200 copies) edition with a hard slipcase signed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti: $100.00 ISBN: 978-0-8112-1761-3

"I got it signed when I was a teenager. I took the train to San Francisco, went to the bookstore and went to a nearby bar where I heard that he hung out, gave it to the bartender and said, 'Well, if he comes in, have him sign it for me, will ya?' And he did! There are great pieces in A Coney Island of the Mind -- it feels very current in spite of the fact that it's fifty years old." --Tom Waits, on National Public Radio

The Traveling Companion and Other Plays, by Tennessee Williams

Edited, with an introduction, by Annette J. Saddik

Twelve previously uncollected plays that all embrace, in one way or another, what Time magazine called "the four major concerns that have spurred Williams' dramatic imagination: loneliness, love, the violated heart and the valiancy of survival."

A House Not Meant To Stand, by Tennessee Williams


Foreword by Gregory Mosher; Edited, with an introduction, by Thomas Keith

The spellbinding last full-length play produced during the author's lifetime is now published for the first time.

Firefly Under the Tongue, by Coral Bracho

Translated from the Spanish by Forrest Gander

A brilliantly translated bilingual edition of poems by one of Mexico's foremost woman poets. In the words of her translator Forrest Gander, "Her diction spills out along ceaselessly shifting beds of sound.... Bracho's poems make sense first as music, and music propels them."