The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories
A collection of short stories. Selected and translated by Margaret Sayers Peden.
Horacio Quiroga’s short stories are infused with the themes of life and death that so obsessed him. They span many fiction genres — jungle tale, Gothic horror story, psychological study, morality tale — and possess a universality that has made him a classic Latin American writer.
Contents:
- Introduction by George D. Schade
- The Feather Pillow
- Sunstroke
- The Decapitated Chicken
- The Pursued
- A Slap in the Face
- In the Middle of the Night
- Juan Darien
- The Dead Man
- Anaconda
- The Incense Tree Roof
- The Son
Horacio Quiroga
Horacio Silvestre Quiroga Forteza (1878–1937) was an Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer.
He wrote stories which, in their jungle settings, use the supernatural and the bizarre to show the struggle of man and animal to survive. He also excelled in portraying mental illness and hallucinatory states. His influence can be seen in the Latin American magic realism of Gabriel García Márquez and the postmodern surrealism of Julio Cortázar.