Good and Evil and Other Stories

“Samanta Schweblin is one of the most exciting writers in the world.” —George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo

“Beautifully translated by Megan McDowell, in prose that shimmers with a sort of menacing lyricism, the stories of Good and Evil are powerfully evocative and unsettling. They seem to hover, indeed like fever dreams, between the reassuring familiarities of domestic life and the stark, unpredictable, visionary flights of the unconscious.” —Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times Book Review

“No one writes like Samanta Schweblin. Her narratives are sui generis—wonderfully unpredictable and invitingly strange.” —Lorrie Moore, author of I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home

“Time and again in her masterful new collection, Schweblin creates characters whose lifelines reach some of the most extraordinary questions ever articulated in our literature.” —Karen Russell, author of The Antidote and Swamplandia!

“In Samatha Schweblin’s hands a single story becomes a theory of just about everything. You can hear all the atoms of the universe bouncing around. Remarkably taut, clear, precise, and yet capable of capturing the extent of our human messiness, these stories are perfect for the times we dwell inside.” —Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin

“Nobody understands the balance of light and darkness of the human mind as well as Samanta Schweblin. She is a master of the edge, of the contour, the suggestion. The most brilliant writer of short stories writing today, she now delivers her most haunting, fierce and provocative book.” —Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive

“Samanta Schweblin combines the urgent propulsion that characterizes all great storytelling with precise, if uncanny, descriptions of human feelings that often go unnamed, those ambiguous zones of human reality where awe, dread, and desire mingle.” —Siri Hustvedt, author of Memories of the Future

“Samanta Schweblin has a rare ability to write stories that are more than just stories: they are bits of obsessions, fragments of nightmares, desires like parasites that colonize us, because Samanta knows. She understands the delicate and monstrous music that is shaped from our shadows, from the ghosts we carry within us. That is why to read her is to remember; to read her is to witness, in bewilderment, a miracle made of disturbance and light.” —Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender is the Flesh

“The atmosphere in these stories, crafted with striking clarity, foreshadows that at some point, everything will go awry, and the effects of that twist will haunt the protagonists forever. These are not ghost stories. They are something far worse and far better: they are stories about human beings.” —Leila Guerriero, author of La Llamada

“Stellar—extreme, uncanny and beautifully controlled.” —Anne Enright, author of The Gathering

“Reading Samanta Schweblin is a thoroughly immersive experience. These beautifully crafted and eerily unsettling stories completely hypnotised me. This is the sort of storytelling which resonates in the head, the heart and all mysterious parts in between. I wish I could write like this.” —Jan Carson, author of The Fire Starters

“These stories understand the secret moments and strange connections that resonate through a person’s life—and they explore these intimacies with a razor sharp edge. Samantha Schweblin is at the top of her game.” —Heather Parry, author of Orpheus Builds a Girl

“Schweblin’s prose, translated with exquisite precision by her regular translator Megan McDowell, avoids all the stylistic traps of the generically mystical. There is no gauziness, no obfuscatory veil. Schweblin’s aim is neither to mystify nor to distort. Instead, she looks at the world directly, piercing its deceptive surface, allowing the reader to do the same. . . . Such directness and clarity of language opens a unique emotional terrain where fear and compassion conjoin.” —Sam Byers, Guardian

“Schweblin once again proves herself to be more of the most unsettling and incisive voices in fiction.” —Frank Wynne, Irish Times

“We have the impression of a writer absolutely and entirely in control, as Schweblin’s meticulous clarity is never compromised by the horror of her subjects. But if we trust her to take us to the bottom, almost always she will reward us with a glimmer. . . . Here are six strong doses of the unheimlich, from a remarkable writer. Schweblin is descended from David Lynch and indeed Kafka, but her voice remains entirely her own.” —Francesca Segal, Financial Times

“Samanta Schweblin is among the top names in the flourishing world of South American horror, and the stories in Good and Evil again proves why her writing continues to haunt us. Nestled perfectly between realistic human tragedy and surrealism, her writing consistently lays bare the interior motivations and fears that threaten to lead us toward monstrosity. At its core, Good and Evil is a collection about aging and what we owe to ourselves and our youth; another triumph from Schweblin.” —Chicago Review of Books

“The Argentinian author’s new collection has six stories on the edge of the diabolical. . . . Spooky and propulsive and perfect for readers of Bora Chung or Mariana Enríquez.” —Our Culture Magazine

“Each entry is more luminous and shocking than the last. This establishes Schweblin as a master storyteller.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Schweblin and veteran translator McDowell trace the slim barrier between perception and reality with masterful narration, piercing dialogue, stealthy wit, and psychological precision. … Outrageously original and deeply felt stories with an indelible effect.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“[A] doyenne of speculative fiction depicts characters and situations that straddle pleasure and the uncanny, a 21st-century Twilight Zone.” —Boston Globe

“[Schweblin’s] worlds tend to be inescapably off—disconcertingly akimbo and bathed in unplaceable menace. Best not to let your guard down.” —NPR

“[A] haunting, surreal collection. . . . A stunning read that will work its way into your heart and make a home there.” —People

“Samanta Schweblin knows how to spook. . . . In just six stories, Schweblin demonstrates a mastery of evocative narration and chilling insinuation.” —The Harvard Crimson

“Strange and powerful” —Wall Street Journal