Contemporary Ecuadorian Short Stories

by Vladimiro Rivas (Editor), Various

Latin American Studies, Short Stories

353 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collections of often curious and quirky short stories given to me by Tom, a "frequent flyer" to Ecuador and an avid and eclectic reader. The authors of these stories are largely contemporary, but Pablo Palacio's "Un Hombre Muerto a Puntapies" was written in 1927, and several other stories are from the early 20th century. The information on the book is garbled; blame Goodreads, not me. The editor and compiler of these stories is Vladimiro Rivas, and the translator is Mary Ellen Fieweger, who does a great job of tuning her English diction to match the diction and flavor of the Spanish originals.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the translator's skill, many of the original stories lack the level of craft found in neighboring Latin American countries during the last century. The Ecuadorian penchant for imitative pastiche of European modernists, or Anglophone detective novels, fails to elevate most of the tales told here.