The Scent Of Buenos Aires:Stories By Hebe Uhart

Description

“Seemingly naïve but tremendously sharp, Hebe Uhart’s vision is one that could belong to a child, but a child who has up her sleeve the reflective tools of an adult.” — Alejandra Costamagna

“These stories rarely adhere to conventional plots, but as mood pieces they're effective glimpses into the peculiarities of Uhart's characters, who crave order but usually concede that the world's default mode is disarray.” — Kirkus Reviews

The Scent of Buenos Aires is the first collection of Uhart’s to be published in English, drawing together her best vignettes of quotidian life, stories that sneak up on you. Refreshingly approachable, they are punctuated by street talk and saturated with a cryptic wit that recalls Lydia Davis.

In The Scent of Buenos Aires, Uhart renders moments at the zoo, the hair salon, or a homeowners association meeting with delightfully eccentric insight. These stories cast an unusual, intimate light on the inner lives of plants, animals, and humans, magnifying the minute, everyday quirks of Argentina’s small towns: a cat curls around his owner to humor him, a classroom of children sway like trees when their teacher turns her back. Smiling to herself, Uhart reveals the infinite ways we show ourselves to one another.

About the Author

Born in 1936 in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Hebe Uhart is one of the most original voices in the Spanish language. She is best known for her short stories exploring the lives of ordinary characters in small towns. Her Collected Stories won the Buenos Aires Bookfair Prize (2010), and she received Argentina’s National Endowment of the Arts Prize (2015) for her trajectory as well as the Manuel Rojas Ibero-American Narrative Prize (2017). Her writing, which presents a characteristically criollo language, is identified with a quirky, understated syntax that constructs an odd perspective on the quotidian life in South America. Uhart died in 2018.

Anna Vilner is a Russian-born American translator. She holds an MFA from the University of Arkansas and is a PhD student in Comparative Literature at the University of Texas-Austin. Her translations can be found in World Literature Today, The Massachusetts Review, Columbia Journal, and The Common.