Announcing a short-notice edition of the Mudd Up Book Clubb.
We are meeting this Sunday, March 24rd, to discuss Augusto Monterroso’s short story “Mister Taylor.â€
Those unfamiliar with the Guatemalan writer who lived most of his life in Mexico City are in for a treat! Monterroso’s agile and darkly comic meditations on “resource extraction,” colonial mentality, distribution chains, citizen-hostile bureaucracy, and the impact of North American appetites on life in Latin America pack as much of a multilayered punch now as they did when “Mister Taylor” was first published, sixty years ago. Nuanced and outrageous.
Here’s the first sentence, from Edith Grossman’s pitch-perfect translation:
“Somewhat less strange, though surely more exemplary,†the other man said, “is the story of Mr. Percy Taylor, a headhunter in the Amazon jungle.â€
The original Spanish text is online, the English trans. will be provided in advance (it’s a fast read, takes less than 10 minutes), and we’ll meet at 5pm on Sunday in this special short-notice edition… Interested? Join us. Keep it muddy.