Vals de Mefisto

This book, which brings together four unsettling and flawless stories, is one of the greatest achievements of the renowned Mexican writer Sergio Pitol. The author places his characters in impossible settings that suddenly become commonplace—or in perfectly familiar settings that, through some unknown inner illumination, abruptly turn remote and elusive. Venice, chastely deflowered, transforms into an intermittent fountain of lights; its reflections seem to offer us a simple night of love that encompasses all the stories of the Universe. In Samarkand, we witness an invasion of toothed storks, a lurid orgy, and an initiation rite that brings us to the brink of madness, as well as the author’s recollections of conversations with his friend Torres in a dreary little café in Warsaw.