cover image The Exiles and Other Stories

The Exiles and Other Stories

Horacio Quiroga. University of Texas Press, $17.95 (156pp) ISBN 978-0-292-72050-3

In one of the 13 stories by this Uruguayan writer collected here, two men stranded during a rainstorm stumble on a family gathered around a very sick boy. Nearby is the yaciayatere, a bird that screeches out a warning when death is near. The men are certain that the boy will die, although the parents don't seem to realize this. The story offers an unexpected twist at the end and carries the message: don't laugh in the face of death. In ""The Wilderness,'' a rough-and-ready man named Subercasaux is kind and gentle when around his children but filled with panic when he thinks of the deadly infection that is taking over his body. Quiroga's prose effectively conveys the despair, the hope and the fear that grips his South American characters. (July)