Assumed Name
By Ricardo PigliaTranslated by Sergio Waisman
ISBN: 0-935480-71-4
Price: $16.00
Pages: 160
The novella which gives its title to the collection is a unique and fascinating piece reminiscent of the style exemplified by Jorge Luis Borges's work. The author himself is the protagonist attempting to solve the mystery of an unpublished manuscript allegedly written by the Argentine writer Robert Arlt.
Ricardo Piglia is one of the most innovative contemporary writers in Latin America. He is the author of five books, including the highly acclaimed Artificial Respiration. Assumed Name is Piglia's second book to be translated into English.
"Argentinian writer and critic Piglia...borrows shamelessly from Borges and other postmodern writers in this eponymous novella and five accompanying short stories....But that borrowing is a conscious aesthetic choice that underscores a recurring theme in this cerebral collection: originality is a myth....Collectively [the stories] try to dissolve the strict divisions between fact and fiction, reality and dreaming and, ultimately, as far as the reader is concerned, literature and criticism."
--Publishers Weekly
"Waisman, who translated this collection of five short stories and a novella, has called Piglia's [Artificial Respiration] 'one of the most important novels to come out of Latin America in recent decades,' and English-speaking audiences can be assured of works of equal brilliance in Assumed Name."
--Choice