Dazzling, hallucinatory stories by Sara Gallardo, a rediscovered Argentinian contemporary of García Márquez 'One of my favourite books by one of my favourite Argentinian authors' Samanta Schweblin, author of Little Eyes Dazzling and hallucinatory, the stories collected here recall the masters of magical realism ­- but with Gallardo's distinctive, idiosyncratic slant. An old man wakes up one morning to find that his beloved garden, the envy of all his neighbours, is floating away with him on board. A young woman moves to Buenos Aires, bringing with her a replacement head. A meek German missionary leaves Paraguay for the Pampas, completely unprepared for what he will encounter there. Resplendent with otherworldly imagery and beguiling prose, Land of Smoke presents a uniquely compelling voice in Latin American literature.

Why do people choose to play with ideas considered antiquated? Why do they elect to act in non-productive ways? Perhaps the question can be asked in reverse: What comes to mind when we think of technology? That which is practical, efficient, invisible, fast, optimistic, constantly updated. So how can one explain the search for the opposite, that which is useless, inefficient, physically present, slow, dystopian, obsolete and governed by chance? The matter of what motivates the search for `antiquated' forms strikes deep into the heart of value. Are people simply following trends? Are they idiots? Are they sentimental? Are they artists? Are they interested in kitsch? Are they uninformed? Are they poets? Other Paradises is a collection of essays exploring imaginative responses to science and technology, and is about people who choose to build `other paradises', fully conscious of the alternative they offer to the dominant paradigm of technological progress.

The Valley Loses Its Atmosphere is the final collection by Chilean poet Winett de Rokha. A book of 48 poems written during a journey across Latin America, it is a canto americano, an epic poem that sings of a united America through its land and peoples. The poems give attention to the geography and social conditions, mentioning the "banana plantations, rubber plantations, farmlands that produce bloodsuckers", the indigenous peoples such as the jivaro of Peru and Ecuador, local fauna like wolves and wasps, local flora like the clavel del aire or copihue, and popular protests like the Baltimore Workers' Congress. Winett proposes a new kind of language and a new kind of person, within new economic structures. She does so through the performance of a neobaroque rhetoric that mirrors the America she finds, a mottled variety to it, a "convulsive labyrinth, uneven, baroque, communicating", with "jumbled qualities". One feels Winett's pleasure in making her way across an America whose territories had already been given a hundred names by indigenous peoples before Columbus arrived, as she makes visits with her husband Pablo on behalf of a Communist Party that in theory stands for the friendship of peoples and the pursuit of economic and social justice. The world, shaken by recent and ongoing civil and global wars as Winett and Pablo travelled, seems to vibrate with imminent catastrophe and change. Winett's introductory poem announces her intention to create a "song of gold dust" and a "strophe of the day's necessity". "The Valley Loses Its Atmosphere is incorruptibly American," she proclaims. As the critic Javier Bello puts it: "The Valley Loses Its Atmosphere is a book that will require many readings to give an account of its complexity and restore it to the place I believe it should have held - and should still hold - in contemporary Chilean poetry, as one of its most intense and particular moments."