Jorge Luis Borges declared "The Invention of Morel" a masterpiece of plotting, comparable to "The Turn of the Screw" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Set on a mysterious island, Bioy's novella is a story of suspense and exploration, as well as a wonderfully unlikely romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious.

Inspired by Bioy Casares's fascination with the movie star Louise Brooks, "The Invention of Morel" has gone on to live a secret life of its own. Greatly admired by Julio Cortazar, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Octavio Paz, the novella helped to usher in Latin American fiction's now famous postwar boom. As the model for Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet's Last Year in Marienbad, it also changed the history of film.

Lucio, a normal man in a normal (nosy) city neighborhood with normal problems with his wife (not the easiest person to get along with) and family and job (he lost it) finds he has a much bigger problem: his wife is a dog. At first, it doesn't seem like such a problem, because the German shepherd inhabiting his wife's body is actually a good deal more agreeable than his wife herself, now occupying the body of the same German shepherd in a mental hospital run by scientists who, it appears, have designs on the whole neighborhood. But then Lucio has a sense, however confused, of what's right, which is an even bigger problem yet.

"Asleep in the Sun" is the great work of the Argentine master Adolfo Bioy Casares's later years. Like his legendary "Invention of Morel," it is an intoxicating mixture of fantasy, sly humor, and menace. Whether read as a fable of modern politics, a meditation on the elusive parameters of the self, or a most unusual love story, Bioy's book is an almost scarily perfect comic turn, as well as a pure delight.

Luis Cngel Morales es taxista y tambien un buen hombre que se mete en muchos lios casi sin enterarse. No obstante, sus amigos ven en el la replica obligada del campeon de boxeo Luis Cngel Firpo, B+quien saco del ring a DempseyB; por eso lleva su nombre. Pero Morales, a quien los pasajeros que recoge en su taxi terminan siempre por enredar en absurdas situaciones y a quien facilmente se le puede tomar el pelo, no es ningun heroe. Tampoco pretende serlo. Su unico deseo es encontrar algun dia por las calles de la ciudad a Valentina, de quien conserva el hermoso recuerdo de un amor huidizo. La idea obsesiva de que la perdio B+por falta de fe en si mismoB; es, de hecho, su unica fuente de valor y arrojo. Reencontramos aqui ese humor algo malevolo que surca casi toda la obra de Bioy y que induce a leerle con una sonrisa a veces incomoda, como desplazada, pero ineludible, casi obligada.

El argentino Bioy Casares recibio el Premio Cervantes en 1990. En este volumen se ofrecen dos de sus obras mas caracteristicas: una novela y una coleccion de relatos cortos. Utiliza el autor lo fantastico como tema y el rigor intelectual, ademas del humorismo, como forma.

A Russian Doll and Other Stories, published in Spanish in 1991 as Una muneca rusa, is the ninth collection of short fiction by one of this century's premier Argentinian writers who, with his fellow countrymen Julio Cortazar and Jorge Luis Borges, helped change the world's perception of Latin American literature. Bioy Casares' narratives are elegant and urbane, his style precise and streamlined, as he paces his characters through seriocomic traps of fate - ensnared by love, impelled by lust, ambition, or plain greed, even metamorphosed by pharmaceuticals. These are not stories in a psychological mode but like the image of the Russian doll of the title piece are carefully wrought congeries of intractable selves within selves.

A Russian Doll and Other Stories is the ninth collection of short fiction by one of this century's premier Argentinian writers who, with his fellow countrymen Julio Cortazar and Jorge Luis Borges, helped change the world's perception of Latin American literature. Bioy Casares's narratives are elegant and urbane, his style precise and streamlined, as he paces his characters through seriocomic traps of fate ensnared by love, impelled by lust, ambition, or plain greed, even metamorphosed by pharmaceuticals. These are not stories in a psychological mode but like the image of the Russian doll of the title piece are carefully wrought congeries of intractable selves within selves."