Matter of Self-Esteem and Other Stories

Carme Riera, hailed as a dominant literary force in Spain, has long merited recognition in other countries. Her prose, with all its intricacy, humour, and grace, has been skilfully transported from Castilian and Catalan to English, and has been brought to our shores with its riches intact. Her stories focus on a broad range of characters-predominantly female-from the intellectually sophisticated to the plain and domestic, from younger to older, and each is given a perfect voice....
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Carme Riera, hailed as a dominant literary force in Spain, has long merited recognition in other countries. Her prose, with all its intricacy, humour, and grace, has been skilfully transported from Castilian and Catalan to English, and has been brought to our shores with its riches intact. Her stories focus on a broad range of characters-predominantly female-from the intellectually sophisticated to the plain and domestic, from younger to older, and each is given a perfect voice.

The stories in this collection: ""A Matter of Self-Esteem,"" ""Mon Semblabe, Mon Frere,"" ""Against Love in Company,"" ""The Seductive Genuis,"" ""Report,"" ""Surprise at Sri Lanka,"" and ""Recipe Book"" display a wide variety of narrative.

In ""A Matter of Self-Esteem,"" Angela, a writer in her late forties, falls passionately in love with Miguel, who humiliates her by using their brief affair as material for a novel which she is caricatured-Angela puts into play a revenge that is sheer genius. In ""Against Love in Company,"" Coral Flora, a teenager who is a gifted erotic poet marries a seventy-year-old man who cannot satisfy her sexually-she discovers a quite simple solution.

The author weaves her seductive web; the reader can do nothing less than be drawn into it.