Bestiario


Bestiario is a Argentinean collection of eight short stories written by Julio Cortázar.
His first volume of short fiction, all the stories were translated into English by Paul Blackburn and included in End of [the Game and Other Stories].
The collection was reprinted by Vintage Press in 1967.
"Cefalea" was translated into English by Michael Cisco in 2014 and published online in Reactor Magazine. "Omnibus" and "Circe" were translated by Alberto Manguel and appear in Bestiary: The Selected Stories of Julio Cortázar.

Stories

  • "Casa Tomada"
  • "Carta a una señorita en París"
  • "Lejana"
  • "Ómnibus"
  • "Cefalea" : A group of ranchers are raising a herd of mancuspias. Isolated on their farm from the nearby townsfolk who fear catching diseases from the animals, the ranchers themselves have become hypochondriacs and are constantly taking different medicines to protect themselves against numerous mental and physical ailments. When two of the farm's laborers abscond with the only horse, the ranchers are left to care for the strange animals by themselves. The mancuspias slowly become ill and begin to die, howling in pain as they surround the house the ranchers have been forced to take refuge in.
  • "Circe"
  • "Las puertas del cielo"
  • "Bestiario"

    Retrospective appraisal

Novelist and critic Ilan Stavans reports that reception of Bestiario was “rather poor” but underwent a positive reassessment in the 1960s. The collection “contains the seed of everything Cortázar would ever create…”