Dazzling, hallucinatory stories by Sara Gallardo, a rediscovered Argentinian contemporary of García Márquez

An old man wakes up one morning to find that his beloved garden, the envy of all his neighbours, is floating away – with him on board; a bored young woman decides to start a new, double life in Buenos Aires – with the useful prop of a spare head she keeps in her closet; a meek German missionary leaves Paraguay for the Pampas, completely unprepared for what he will encounter there at night.

Land of Smoke is the first English translation of this recently rediscovered major Argentinian writer. Dazzling and hallucinatory, the stories collected here recall the masters of magical realism – but with Gallardo’s distinctive, idiosyncratic slant.

Sara Gallardo was a celebrated and prize-winning Argentinian writer, born in Buenos Aires in 1931. Her first book was published in 1958, and by the time she died in 1988, she had published novels, short stories, children’s books, and essays. Written after the death of her second husband, Land of Smoke is the first of her books to be translated into English.