Mouthful of Birds
A SPELLBINDINGLY CREEPY COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES, FROM AN ARGENTINIAN LITERARY STAR
'The Grimm brothers and Franz Kafka pay a visit to Argentina in Samanta Schweblin's darkly humorous tales.' J.M. Coetzee
Spine-tingling and unexpected, unearthly and strange, the stories of Mouthful of Birds are impossible to forget.
The crunch of a bird's wing.
A cloud of butterflies, so beautiful it smothers.
A crimson flash of blood across an artist's canvas.
Samanta Schweblin's writing expertly blurs the line between the surreal and the everyday, pulling the reader into a world that is at once nightmarish and beautiful. An exhilarating tour de force guaranteed to leave the pulse racing.
'This is our world, and sharp-focused, but stripped of its usual meanings... Brutal violence is twisted into horrific, intensely experienced art.' Guardian
*Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, 2019*
Samanta Schweblin won the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature for her story collection, Seven Empty Houses. Her debut novel, Fever Dream, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and her novel Little Eyes and story collection Mouthful of Birds have been longlisted for the same prize. Her books have been translated into over forty languages. Originally from Buenos Aires, Schweblin lives in Berlin.
Megan McDowell has translated books by many contemporary South American and Spanish authors. Her translations have won the National Book Award, the O. Henry Prize and the Premio Valle-Inclán, and been nominated for the International Booker Prize four times. She lives in Chile.