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Julio Ramón Ribeyro (b. 1929, d. 1994) is one of Peru's foremost writers, although he lived most of his adult life in Europe, principally Paris. His literary specialty was the short story. MARGINAL VOICES contains fifteen of Ribeyro's stories, selected and translated by Dianne Douglas. The book is a very good introduction to a distinctive short-story-writer, one who deserves to be better known in the United States.

Most of the stories are set in Peru, a few in Europe. All but one feature a principal character who is Peruvian. The central characters in most of the stories are basically good everyday people who desire, and arguably deserve, more from life, but in the end they suffer a failure of will or Fate declares otherwise. Although disappointments and frustrated dreams mark the stories, they tend to be light, gently comic, and almost whimsical in an "Ah, well, that's the way life is" vein. (A couple stories that take on social issues depart from this model and are, to my mind, a tad heavy-handed.) In many an element of the surreal or fantastic creeps in and almost all end with a twist.

The fifteen stories display considerable range. To give a reader an idea of their nature and diversity, here is the set-up for six of them: Two boys living in a Lima slum with their grandfather are forced to go scavenging every day for scraps to eat and to feed the pig grandpa is raising (the title of this story is "The Featherless Buzzards"). A man comes across a silver pin in a trash pile and begins to wear it on his suit coat; suddenly he is admitted into a capricious, cabalistic organization ("If someone should ask me what our organization stands for, I wouldn't know what to say."). A zambo (of mixed Indian and Negro blood) bleaches his hair and lightens his skin in an effort to pass as white; he goes to America and ends up having to fight in Korea to avoid deportation. Luciano, a young up-and-coming hale-fellow-well-met from an impoverished background, is suddenly confronted by his deadbeat father who had disappeared for eight years. The boarders in a Spanish rooming house get together to dress up a beautiful but poor young woman in finery borrowed from the resident cocottes so that she can go out on a date with a potential suitor who might rescue her from her sorry existence. Carmen, a Spanish girl living off her charms as an evening companion for men, goes around Paris ripping down travel posters with which to decorate her hovel and to dream.

Ribeyro's style definitely is Latin American, but it is not as otherworldly or laced with magical realism as many. Thus, I suspect that Ribeyro should be more accessible to the average American reader. He certainly is a writer worth reading.

I would not ordinarily be reading Ribeyro in English, but for the fact that my partner is offering a course of Latin american literature in translation, so here I am, looking for them. Ribeyro. I already have his collected works in Spanish. And this collection has my favorite story "Featherless Buzzards". Ribeyro is an undisputed master teller, and a most accute critic of Peruvian society. His stories cover a whole range of topics and takes on the foibles of his country. He's up there with all of the giants, from Cortázar to
Rosario Castellanos.

This book is filled with the most beautiful stories I have ever read, by any author, Latin American or not. The stories are simple, yet profound and will touch your very soul. This book is a terrific introduction to Ribeyro and should not be missed by anyone who enjoys as lovely, yet simple, story. (I am not related to the author!)

Este libro reune los textos de uno de los mas grandes estilistas del cuentocorto latinoamericano. Con su penetracion sicologica y su deshinibicion para retratar al olvidado, al perdedor, al que siempre esta fuera de la historia.

Simple stories, but beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking. Unlike any other Latin American you might've read.