The Black Sheep and Other Fables by Augusto Monterroso. Garden City. 1971. Doubleday. Translated from the Spanish by Walter I. Bradbury with the convivial cooperation of the author. 113 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Patricia Saville Voehl.
DESCRIPTION - Imagine Borges' fantastic bestiary having tea with Alice. Imagine Dean Swift and James Thurber trading notes. Imagine a frog from Calaveras County who had actually read Mark Twain. Meet Augusto Monterroso. The foregoing invitation by novelist Carlos Fuentes is both gracious and apt, for in this delightful volume Augusto Monterroso resumes in modem form a tradition older than Aesop-the fable. Here are presented wondrous creatures like the Monkey who wanted to be a satirical writer, the Fly who dreamed he was an Eagle, the Giraffe who learned the hard way about relativity; intriguing revelations like the true point of Penelope's weaving, the dilemma of the Lightning Bolt that did strike twice in the same place, or the case of Ulysses and the non-conformist Siren-and many other delectable and edifying tales. As Monterroso's admirers point out the antics of his fabulous Beasts and Beings are minors to the foibles of mankind (not me and thee, of course-others). On the other hand, it could be limply that your occasional Monkey does want to be a satirical writer, In any case, the author disclaims a strictly moral intention, Asked in an interview if he was against moralists, he responded that he was only against overly-explicit moralists. ‘To say that a grasshopper should work like an ant,' he continued, ‘is a piece of foolishness
perpetuated through centuries. The grasshopper won't change. In any case it is the ant who should change.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Augusto Monterroso Bonilla (December 21, 1921 - February 7, 2003) was a Honduran writer, known for the ironical and humorous style of his short stories. He is considered an important figure in the Latin American 'Boom' generation, and received several awards, including the Prince of Asturias Award in Literature (2000), Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature (1997), and Juan Rulfo Award (1996).
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