There’s no lack of variety in this collection, culled from Machado’s 120-something catalogue of short stories by the translators with the aim of representing, even roughly, a writer who never seems to have settled on a preferred style or voice. Many of these tales are more or less parables, ludic thought experiments sometimes calling to mind Borges — the two outright parables, Life! and The Canon were the only two that did absolutely nothing for me. At the other end of the stylistic spectrum are gentle social satires like Augusta’s Secret that approach someone like, I dunno, Katherine Mansfield, but without her psychological penetration. And in between are short, anecdotal tales, sometimes with hints of the uncanny, that put me in mind of Ambrose Bierce. These include me favourite by far, Maria Cora, about the cruelties and delusions of love, and the moving but heavy-handed Father against Mother, in which a penurious slave-catcher saves his own child at the expense of another.

Overall, mostly enjoyable enough, but the comparisons to Sterne, Kafka, Beckett and god knows who else are OTT (though Machado does predate all of them except Sterne). Clearly a very interesting writer, and I’m looking forward to reading his novels. ( )