Stripping Away
the Sorrows of This World

The book’s use of nature as its protagonist recalls the harsh fiction of Juan Rulfo, but Gardea includes subtle ironies and grace notes that are all his own. … Translated into an appropriately raw English by Mark Schafer (who also made the selections for this volume), the stories are bleak and unforgiving.” – James Polk, The New York Times Book Review

“A book of stories by the Mexican writer Jesus Gardea. The stories are part of a sophisticated literature that, in its swiftness and anecdote, runs counter to prevalent literary trends. […] The atmosphere is intimate and strange, swirling, violent. The language is characterized by short, blunt phrases. […] Gardea’s early stories have something in common with Faulkner, Rulfo, Onetti, later stories move away on a path reminiscent of Goya, Kafka, or Bacon, and in his most recent stories, the author enters a strange world that is uniquely his own, that draws nourishment from the arid landscape and cloistered life of northern Mexico…. Without question, this ample collection of the author’s work encapsulates the least classifiable—and in many aspects the most remarkable—career in Mexican literature. – Amazon