My Documents: Stories

An early desktop computer becomes the third partner in a doomed relationship; an older brother figure whose father lives in exile imparts hilarious life lessons to his young prot g . A man attempts to quit smoking despite the fact that he's very good at it; another masquerades as the family man he'll never be. Throughout, Pinochet's dictatorship casts a long shadow, and men in relationships exhibit their profound capacity for both love and harm.

In these unforgettable stories--which span religion, romance, technology, soccer, solitude, and more--Alejandro Zambra unfolds a radical literary reflection on life, relationships, and the tender and brutal dimensions of masculinity in Chile from the 1980s to the present. Intimate and playful, provocative and profound, and brilliantly rendered by National Book Award winning translator Megan McDowell, My Documents a testament to the necessity of literature even--and especially--in times of political and personal crisis.