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This volume collects some of the best short fiction from the six Spanish-speaking countries of Central America-Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Selected from stories written between 1963 and 1988, it is a broad representation of active Central American writers. Many of the stories are quite sophisticated and utilize elements of the absurd or techniques of magical realism. Some stories deal with war-the unending struggle against dictators and military power that engrosses Central Americans. Others explore the realm of the writer's imagination. Some of the writers included are Augusto Monterroso (Guatemala), Carmen Naranjo and Samuel Rovinski (Costa Rica), Rosa Maria Britton and Jaime Garcia Saucedo (Panama), and Alfonso Quijada Urias (El Salvador).