A post-mortem photographer unearths dark secrets of the past that may hold the key to his future, in this captivating debut novel in the gothic tradition of Wuthering Heights and The Thirteenth Tale . All love stories are ghost stories in disguise. When famed Byronesque poet Hugh de Bonne is discovered dead of a heart attack in his bath one morning, his cousin Robert Highstead, a historian turned post-mortem photographer, is charged with a simple...

"A debut novel by acclaimed poet Lisa Robertson, in which a poet realizes she has written the works of Baudelaire. One morning, the poet Hazel Brown wakes up in a strange hotel room to find that she's written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire. Surprising as this may be, it's no more surprising to Brown than the impossible journey she's taken to become the writer that she is. Animated by the spirit of the poète maudit, she shuttles between...

An unnamed narrator observes the progression of a young poet into an enigmatic officer and nationalist sky writer with darkly creative aspirations in Pinochet's air force.

"Durante buena parte de esta novela Gonzalo es un poetastro que quiere ser poeta y un padrastro que se comporta como si fuera el padre biológico de Vicente, un niño adicto a la comida para gatos que años más tarde se niega a estudiar en la universidad porque su sueño principal es convertirse -también- en poeta, a pesar de los consejos de Carla, su orgullosamente solitaria madre, y de León, un padre mediocre dedicado a coleccionar autitos de...

"The daughter of a Venetian musician, Aemilia Bassano came of age in Queen Elizabeth's royal court. The Queen's favorite, she developed a love of poetry and learning, maturing into a young woman known not only for her beauty but also her sharp mind and a quick tongue. When Aemilia becomes the mistress of Lord Hunsdon, she fears her mind will languish--until she crosses paths with an impetuous playwright named William Shakespeare and begins an impassioned...

"June, 1381. Embarking on his annual pilgrimage to Canterbury, Geoffrey Chaucer and his fellow travellers are forced to turn back when confronted with a horde of armed and angry peasants, intent on marching to London. Returning to the city to warn the authorities of the approaching danger, the pilgrims hole up at the Tabard Inn and prepare for the coming invasion. That same night, a woman's body is fished out of the River Thames, her throat cut. When...

"It's the end of summer, 2003. George W. Bush has recently declared the mission in Iraq accomplished and the unemployment rate is at its highest level in years. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Midwest, Troy Augustus Loudermilk (fair-haired, statuesque, charismatic) and his companion Harry Rego (definitely none of those things) step out of a silver Land Cruiser and onto the campus of The Seminars, America's most prestigious creative writing program, to...

"Elsie is a sexy, funny, and fiercely independent woman in south London. But, at just twenty-eight, she is also tired. Though she spends her days writing tender poetry in her journal, her nights are spent working long hours for minimum wage at a neighborhood dive bar. Not even sleeping with her alluring coworker, Bea, can quell her existential dread. The difficulty of being estranged from her family, struggle of being continually rejected from jobs,...

""There's no way you can do this reentry thing," Orlando Lucero tells himself after getting out of prison. He has spent most of his life institutionalized, first in an orphanage and then in the Denver Youth Authority for smuggling weed. Orlando knows nothing about freedom. What does one do with it? What is it? His brother promised to teach him the carpentry trade, but Orlando quickly discovers Camilo is--like their parents--an addict, robbing and...

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes, six English-speaking authors and six Spanish-speaking authors have collected 12 original and previously unpublished stories as their tribute to the international influence of these two giants of world literature. An introduction by Salman Rushdie explores the legacy of the two men in contemporary fiction.