Hopscotch

Julio Cortazar lived in Buenos Aires for the first thirty years of his life, and after that in Paris. His stories, written under the dual influence of the English masters of the uncanny and of French surrealism, are extraordinary inventions, just this side of nightmare. In later life Cortazar became a passionate advocate for human rights and a persistent critic of the military dictatorships in Latin America. He died in 1984.

Julio Cortazar's crazed masterpiece, the forbearer of the Latin Boom in the 1960s 
 
'Cortazar's masterpiece. This is the first great novel of Spanish America... A powerful anti-novel but, like deeply understood moments in life itself, rich with many kinds of potential meanings and intimations' Times Literary Supplement 
 
Dazed by the disappearance of his muse, Argentinian writer Horatio Oliveira wanders the bridges of Paris, the sounds of jazz and the talk of literature, life and art echoing around him. But a chance encounter with a literary idol and his new work – a novel that can be read in random order – sends Horatio’s mind into further confusion. 
 
As a return to Buenos Aires beckons, Horatio’s friend and fellow artist, Traveler, awaits his arrival with dread –the lives of these two young writers now ready to play out in an inexhaustible game of indeterminacy.

Final Exam

In a fog-drenched Buenos Aires, Juan and Clara should be preparing for their final exam. Instead, they roam the city with friends, drifting through cafés, encountering strange happenings, and unravelling life’s mysteries. All the while, they are shadowed by the mysterious Abel. 
 
Darkly funny and steeped in ambiguity, Final Exam is Julio Cortázar’s haunting allegory of a world on the brink—his melancholic, defiant farewell to an Argentina he would soon leave behind forever.

The Winners

When a group of Argentinians win a mysterious lottery, their prize – a luxury cruise – seems too good to question. But as the voyage unfolds, strange and unsettling events begin to mount. The passengers find themselves trapped aboard a ship run by a silent, secretive crew, and the true nature of their journey grows ever more uncertain. 
 
Funny, frightening, and richly lyrical, The Winners is a philosophical thriller of tangled fates and wayward love – an incisive meditation on power, exile, and the myth of the New World.

A Manual for Manuel

In 1970s Paris, a group of revolutionaries plot the daring kidnapping of a powerful Latin American official. But among them is Andrés, a man adrift in a world of high-stakes politics. 
 
As Andrés spirals into a crisis of identity, Cortázar intersects the group’s story with real-life documents, newspaper clippings, and personal reflections to construct a compelling mosaic that explores the complexities of revolution, commitment, and the human spirit.

62: A Model Kit

‘A deeply touching, enjoyable novel, beautifully written and fascinatingly mysterious and intricate in its designs’ New York Times 
 
In a city that could be Paris, London or Vienna, a loose-knit group of travellers, artists, and dreamers gather – drawn together by a cryptic passage from a book. Among them are the exiled writer Juan, the elusive Hélène, and the troubled Celia, each slipping between reality and illusion as their lives intertwine. Conversations turn into riddles, encounters take on the weight of fate, and a dark undercurrent of violence pulses beneath it all. 
 
Both playful and disorienting, 62: A Model Kit is Julio Cortázar’s most enigmatic puzzle – an intricate, hypnotic novel that challenges the very nature of storytelling.

Hopscotch and Blow-Up

Two ground-breaking works from a major figure of world literature, one of the founders of the Latin American Boom. Published exquisitely by EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY.

With his "counter-novel" Hopscotch and his unforgettable short stories, Julio Cortázar earned a place among the most innovative authors of the twentieth century. Hopscotch follows the adventures of an Argentinean writer living in Paris with his lover and a circle of bohemian friends, and consists of 155 short chapters that the author advises us to read out of order. Blow-Up brings together the most famous of Cortázar's short fiction--stories where invisible beasts stalk children in their homes, where a man reading a mystery finds out that he is the murderer's intended victim. In Cortázar's work, laws of nature, physics, and narrative all fall away, leaving us with an astonishing new view of the world.

Divertimento

Anyone who doesn’t read Cortazar is doomed

Cortázar is one of the most distinctive voices in Latin American literature

Bring back Cortázar….Maybe we’re only just now ready to read Cortázar, to truly read him

I'm permanently indebted to the work of Cortázar

Cortázar can induce the kind of chilling unease that strikes like a sound in the night

Dive into the mesmerizing dreamworld of Latin America’s literary great, Julio Cortázar. 
 
As the 1949 carnival dances on in Buenos Aires, a group of young creatives gather in the sumptuous seclusion of an art studio. In this surreal, bohemian sanctuary, ruled by the dazzling Renato Lozano, elaborate meals are assembled, while strange poetry and merciless witticisms flow like wine. 
 
Yet, as time passes, tensions and secrets begin to unravel, and so too do the boundaries of established reality. Divertimento will whisk you away on a bizarre and brilliant journey, taking you to the hidden heart of art, fantasy and the alchemy that is creative interpretation. 
 
This is Julio Cortázar’s bold, experimental debut, here translated into English for the very first time. 
 
TRANSLATED BY HARRY MORALES 
 
'Anyone who doesn't read Cortázar is doomed' Pablo Neruda 
 
‘Julio Cortázar is truly a sorcerer’ Kevin Barry 
 
'A first-class literary imagination' The New York Times Book Review 
 
‘Bring back Cortázar….Maybe we’re only just now ready to read Cortázar, to truly read him’ Alejandro Zambra

Julio Cortázar

Kevin Barry

A fecund mixture of surrealism, symbolism, nouveau roman experimentation and Borgesian fantasy, Cortázar enthusiastically seeds his realistic settings – for the most part split between Buenos Aires and Paris – with impossible invasions of the fantastical and supernatural. The effect is often a refined philosophical take on the "uncanny tales" strand of speculative fiction

Original...circuitous and powerful... Cortázar's method is to keep tight control over a world in which, just below the surface of charming, sophisticated social life, lies the unfaceable and unmentionable

A first-class literary imagination at work

The Selected Stories of Julio Cortázar

A collection of masterful short stories in Julio Cortazar's sophistocated, powerful and gripping style. 
 
'Julio Cortázar is truly a sorcerer and the best of him is here, in these hilariously fraught and almost eerily affecting stories' Kevin Barry 
 
A grieving family home becomes the site of a terrifying invasion. A frustrated love triangle, brought together by a plundered Aztec idol, spills over into brutality. A lodger’s inability to stop vomiting bunny rabbits inspires a personal confession. 
 
As dream melds into reality, and reality melts into nightmare, one constant remains throughout these thirty-five stories: the singular brilliance of Julio Cortazar’s imagination. 
 
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY KEVIN BARRY 
 
‘Anyone who doesn't read Cortázar is doomed’ Pablo Neruda

Julio Cortázar

Praise for Bestiary

A fecund mixture of surrealism, symbolism, nouveau roman experimentation and Borgesian fantasy, Cortázar enthusiastically seeds his realistic settings – for the most part split between Buenos Aires and Paris – with ...

Cortázar is one of the most distinctive voices in Latin American literature

Original...circuitous and powerful... Cortázar's method is to keep tight control over a world in which, just below the surface of charming, sophisticated social life, lies the unfaceable and unmentionable

A fecund mixture of surrealism, symbolism, nouveau roman experimentation and Borgesian fantasy, Cortázar enthusiastically seeds his realistic settings – for the most part split between Buenos Aires and Paris – with ...

Cortázar is one of the most distinctive voices in Latin American literature

Original...circuitous and powerful... Cortázar's method is to keep tight control over a world in which, just below the surface of charming, sophisticated social life, lies the unfaceable and unmentionable

A fecund mixture of surrealism, symbolism, nouveau roman experimentation and Borgesian fantasy, Cortázar enthusiastically seeds his realistic settings – for the most part split between Buenos Aires and Paris – with ...

Cortázar is one of the most distinctive voices in Latin American literature

Original...circuitous and powerful... Cortázar's method is to keep tight control over a world in which, just below the surface of charming, sophisticated social life, lies the unfaceable and unmentionable

Books by Julio Cortázar

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