Madrid Tales

by Margaret Jull Costa

The buzzing life of bars, warm evenings by the Manzanares river, the subterranean terrors of the Metro, icy winters and hot, empty summers, student days in the sixties, the ruthless underworld of the city's mafia - this captivating anthology reflects the character of Madrid and the lives of the madrilenos , as its inhabitants are called, in all their splendid variety. Some stories are bizarre, some funny, some serious, and as you read you'll travel through the city. The famous streets and monuments of Madrid - Cibeles, Calle de Alcala, Plaza Mayor, and the Royal Palace - as well as the poor, working-class barrios unfrequented by sightseers will pass before your eyes like a moving picture. Some stories, like the Galdos story and Carmen Martin Gaite's 'A clear conscience' depict a journey across Madrid, while in Javier Marias' sinister tale, 'Fallen from fortune', a couple are unaware that their guide to all the usual tourist highlights is leading them to their death. In 'Through
the wall' and 'Personality disorders', the characters barely leave their apartments, and the city lurks outside the windows. A rich assortment of characters - adolescent boys obsessed with sex; maids up from the country; provincial girls who slide into prostitution; a small boy excited at the prospect of going downtown with his grandfather; vain, self-absorbed thirty-somethings with too much money; immigrant families far from home; mafia types; diligent office-workers struggling to bring up a family - come alive in the tales.

Few of these stories have previously been translated into English. Some names, such as Benito Perez Galdos, Javier Marias, Juan Jose Millas, and Carmen Martin Gaite, will be more familiar than others but all deserve to be better known.

There is a map at the back of the book to indicate the places mentioned in the stories and photographs complement and accompany each story. The reader will also find there biographical notes on the authors and suggestions for further reading.

Genres: Spain, Short Stories, Spanish Literature, Fiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2012

About the author

Margaret Jull Costa has translated the works of many Spanish and Portuguese writers. She won the Portuguese Translation Prize for The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa in 1992 and for The Word Tree by Teolinda Gersao in 2012, and her translations of Eca de Queiroz's novels The Relic (1996) and The City and the Mountains (2009) were shortlisted for the prize; with Javier Marias, she won the 1997 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for A Heart So White, and, in 2000, she won the Weidenfeld Translation Prize for Jose Saramago's All the Names. In 2008 she won the Pen Book-of-the Month-Club Translation Prize and The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize for The Maias by Eca de Queiroz.

Reviews

[Melanie Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[World Literature Today]

"For a reader looking to experience Spanish literature in translation, Madrid Tales is a good start. Margaret Jull Costa has chosen nineteen diverse and entertaining stories that allow the reader to begin a journey that will continue. I hope to see Madrid Tales II in the near future." - Janet Mary Livesey, University of Oklahoma

This book was reviewed in the July 2013 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/19N7Wsk

[Freddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's luck it's not getting two stars but that's just cos the story about the train is pretty intense

[Luisseff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a madrileno, I was quite interested to see what Madrid looks like through a Briton's eye, but this book is not like that. The idea is to gather some tales written by Spanish authors and translated to English to provide a glimpse of what Madrid is like. Not a bad choice of tales I must admit (Javier Marias, Elvira Lindo, Perez Galdos, Juanjo Millas, etc.), so it's a good exercise to enjoy a book while getting an idea about Madrid, but nothing else.

[Sue Chaplin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag with the common theme of all being set in Madrid and written by Spanish writers. My favourite one was called "Return Journey" and had the least romantic sex scene I think I have ever read and a twist to the story that surprised me. It was by Carlos Castan.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Varied quality of stories. There weren't many that were closely tied to the city of Madrid.

[Dan Vine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine collection of short stories set in Madrid

[Amanda Slack · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a collection of translated short stories that take place in Madrid. The stories were quite different!