Whimsical and sinister, each story by Silvina Ocampo is like a knife of spun sugar that can still pierce between your ribs. A thief breaks into the house of a psychic with disastrous results, a bride has her personality subsumed by the previous occupant of her home, and two men switch destinies for a change of pace. The Impostor offers a comprehensive collection from one of the twentieth century's great forgotten woman writers. Here are tales of doubles and living dolls, angels and demons, a beautiful seer who writes the autobiography of her own death, and much else that is mad, sublime, and delicious. With an array spanning the length of Ocampo's career, these haunting stories are among the world's strangest and best.

Fantastical, unnerving short stories from a Surrealist master of the form

About the Author
Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993) studied painting with Giorgio de Chirico and Fernand Leger in Paris, before returning to Buenos Aires. Her first collection of stories, Forgotten Journey appeared in 1937. She was also a prolific poet and translator. Ocampo was reportedly denied Argentina's National Prize for fiction in 1959 after judges decided her work was 'too cruel'.

Reviews
Silvina Ocampo is one of our best writers. Her stories have no equal in our literature. -- Jorge Luis Borges
No other writer better captures the magic inside everyday rituals, the forbidden or hidden face that our mirrors don't show us. -- Italo Calvino
Few writers have an eye for the small horrors of everyday life; fewer still see the everyday marvellous. Other than Silvina Ocampo, I cannot think of a single writer who at any time or in any language, has chronicled both with such wise and elegant humour. -- Alberto Manguel
The black satire of her stories spares almost no one... eerily prescient * Daily Telegraph *
Ocampo captures mundane events in a whimsical, slightly sinister style * Monocle *
A comprehensive collection of surreal tales * i paper *
The allure of Silvina Ocampo's short fiction lies in the raising of unexpected questions again and again. * Tablet *
Comparable to the mighty Cesar Aira, the most surreal stories of Murakami, and her great admirers Borges and Calvino, Ocampo's unnervingly hypnotic, frequently macabre stories are clever, funny, and brilliantly, hauntingly strange. * Big Issue *



Book Information
ISBN 9781788168793
Author Silvina Ocampo
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Serpent's Tail
Publisher Profile Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 300g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 130mm * 26mm