Letters From Mom

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sublunary Editions (January 25, 2022)
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 58 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1955190208
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1955190206

"But she didn’t go back to the old times either, only by chance in some conversation, and above all when letters from Mom arrived, she would drop a name or an image like coins taken out of circulation, objects from an expired world on the river’s distant shore."

Luis and Laura, an Argentine couple looking for a new beginning, settle in France, connected to their former home only through occasional letters from Luis’s mother in Buenos Aires. But when a name from the past appears in an otherwise unremarkable letter, it comes with a dark shadow. What emerges is a psychological study of grief swirling with guilt, equal parts love-triangle and ghost story.

“Letters from Mom” is one of Julio Cortázar’s most beloved short stories, part of the same collection (Las armas secretas) that gave us “Blow-up” and “At Your Service”. It is translated here into English for the first time.

Julio Cortázar (August 26, 1914 – February 12, 1984) was an Argentine writer, teacher, and translator. One of the most original writers of his era, he combined elements of historical fiction and mystery with Surrealist tendencies and a penchant for distorting time. He is best remembered for his mastery of the short story form and for the novel Hopscotch.

Magdalena Edwards is a writer, actor, and translator born in Santiago, Chile, and based in Los Angeles, California. Her translations from Spanish and Portuguese include the work of Clarice Lispector, Nicanor Parra, Raúl Zurita, Óscar Contardo, Silviano Santiago, Noemi Jaffe, and Marcia Tiburi. She writes the Translationships column for Hopscotch Translation.

Julio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar (American Spanish: [ˈxuljo korˈtasar] ; August 26, 1914 – February 12, 1984), was an Argentine novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an entire generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe. He has been called both a "modern master of the short story" and, by Carlos Fuentes, "the Simón Bolívar of the novel."