Ghosts

Ghosts is a remarkable short novel by cult Argentinean author Cesar Aira. 
 
"On a building site of a new, luxury apartment building, visitors looked up at the strange, irregular form of the water tank that crowned the edifice, and the big parabolic dish that would supply television images to all the floors. On the edge of the dish, a sharp metallic edge on which no bird would have dared to perch, three completely naked men were sitting, with their faces turend up to the midday sun; no one saw them, of course." 
 
Ghosts revolves around an immigrant worker's family squatting on the haunted construction site on a luxury condominium building. All the workmen and their wives and children see the ghosts, who literally hang around the place, but one teenage girl becomes the most curious. Her questions about the ghosts get so intense that her mother -- in a chilling split-second -- realizes her daughter's life hangs in the balance. 
 
Praise for Cesar Aira: 
 
'Once you've started reading Aira, you don't want to stop' Roberto Bolaño 
 
'Aira is firmly in the tradition of Jorge Luis Borges and W. G. Sebald' Los Angeles Times 
 
Cesar Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. One of the most prolific writers in Argentina, Aira has published more than seventy books.

Cesar Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. One of the most prolific writers in Argentina, Aira has published more than seventy books.

"On a building site of a new, luxury apartment building, visitors looked up at the strange, irregular form of the water tank that crowned the edifice, and the big parabolic dish that would supply television images to all the floors. On the edge of the dish, a sharp metallic edge on which no bird would have dared to perch, three completely naked men were sitting, with their faces turend up to the midday sun; no one saw them, of course." 
 
Ghosts revolves around an immigrant worker's family squatting on the haunted construction site on a luxury condominium building. All the workmen and their wives and children see the ghosts, who literally hang around the place, but one teenage girl becomes the most curious. Her questions about the ghosts get so intense that her mother -- in a chilling split-second -- realizes her daughter's life hangs in the balance.

The Literary Conference

The Literary Conference showcases Cesar Aira at his finest and most irreverent. 
 
Cesar is a translator who's fallen on very hard times due to the global economic downturn: he is also a mad scientist hell-bent on world domination. On a visit to a beach he intuitively solves an ancient riddle, finds a pirate's treasure, and becomes a very wealthy man. Even so, Cesar's bid for world domination comes first and so he hurries to attend a literary conference to be near the man whose clone he hopes will lead an army to victory: the world-renowned Mexian author Carlos Fuentes. A comic science-fiction fantasy of the first order, The Literary Conference is the perfect vehicle for Cesar Aira's takeover of twenty-first century literature. 
 
Praise for Cesar Aira: 
 
'Once you've started reading Aira, you don't want to stop' Roberto Bolaño 
 
'Aira is firmly in the tradition of Jorge Luis Borges and W. G. Sebald' Los Angeles Times 
 
Cesar Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. One of the most prolific writers in Argentina, Aira has published more than seventy books.

Cesar is a translator who's fallen on very hard times due to the global economic downturn: he is also a mad scientist hell-bent on world domination. On a visit to a beach he intuitively solves an ancient riddle, finds a pirate's treasure, and becomes a very wealthy man. Even so, Cesar's bid for world domination comes first and so he hurries to attend a literary conference to be near the man whose clone he hopes will lead an army to victory: the world-renowned Mwexian author Carlos Fuentes. A comic science-fiction fantasy of the first order, The Literary Conference is the perfect vehicle for Cesar Aira's takeover of twenty-first century literature.

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter

Cesar Aira's An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter captures a moment in the life of the German artist Johann Moritz Rugendas. 
 
Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However, this is not a biography of Rugendas, but rather a work of fiction which weaves an almost surreal history around Rugendas' trips to Argentina where he strived to achieve in art the 'physiognomic totality' of Humboldt's scientific vision of the whole. A brief and dramatic visit to the pampas gives him the chance to fulfill his ambition but a strange episode that he cannot avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly marks him for life . . . 
 
Praise for Cesar Aira: 
 
'Once you've started reading Aira, you don't want to stop' Roberto Bolaño 
 
'Aira is firmly in the tradition of Jorge Luis Borges and W. G. Sebald' Los Angeles Times 
 
Cesar Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. One of the most prolific writers in Argentina, Aira has published more than seventy books.

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is the story of a moment in the life of the German artist Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858). Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However, this is not a biography of Rugendas, but rather a work of fiction which weaves an almost surreal history around Rugendas' trips to Argentina where he strived to achieve in art the 'physiognomic totality' of Humboldt's scientific vision of the whole. A brief and dramatic visit to the pampas gives him the chance to fulfill his ambition but a strange episode that he cannot avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly marks him for life . . .

César Aira

In Ghosts, a group of immigrant workers and their families are squatting on the haunted construction site of a luxury condominium building. One teenage girl's interest in the ghosts on the site becomes so intense that her mother realizes her life is in the balance. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter tells of a point in the life of German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas, when he visits Latin America to paint its spectacular landscapes. And in The Literary Conference, a young translator called César Aira travels to a literary conference, intent on world domination . . .

César Aira

Three Novels by César Aira

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