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Seven Empty Houses

Winner of the National Book Award for Translated Literature, 2022
3.69 goodreads logo

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( 13,026 ratings, 2,011 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin is a captivating collection of seven short stories, each exploring themes of absence, identity, and the haunting presence of the past. Characters find themselves confronting emotional voids and unsettling situations in empty or disrupted domestic spaces. Schweblin masterfully delves into their psyches, offering a deeply introspective and unsettling reading experience.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$2499
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you are drawn to thought-provoking stories that explore the nuances of human relationships and the mysteries within seemingly mundane settings. This collection reveals the hidden emotions and pasts that quietly permeate everyday lives, captivating those who relish psychological depth and a touch of the uncanny in their reading.

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A brand new collection from the master of the spine-tingling tale

The collection that established Samanta Schweblin at the forefront of her literary generation, available in English for the first time

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A blazing new story collection that will make you feel like the house is collapsing in on you, from the three-time International Booker Prize finalist, leading a vanguard of Latin American writers forging their own 21st-century canon. –O, the Oprah magazine

The seven houses in these seven stories are strange. A person is missing, or a truth, or memory; some rooms are enticing, some unmoored, others empty. But in Samanta Schweblin’s tense, visionary tales, something always creeps back in: a ghost, a fight, trespassers, a list of things to do before you die, or the fallibility of parents.

Seven Empty Houses offers an entry point into a fiercely original mind, and a slingshot into Schweblin’s destabilizing, exhilarating literary world. In each story, the twists and turns will unnerve and surprise: Schweblin never takes the expected path and instead digs under the skin and reveals uncomfortable truths about our sense of home, of belonging, and of the fragility of our connections with others. This is a masterwork from one of our most brilliant modern writers.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Samanta Schweblin's Seven Empty Houses is praised for its noirish and sinister themes, combining eeriness with subtle violence, as noted by the Sunday Telegraph. The Financial Times highlights Schweblin's genius for conveying something savage and ungovernable. Marie Claire describes the book as a dark but slyly humorous gem, supported by sharp observation. The Sunday Times characterises it as a unique fusion of surrealism and domestic drama, while the New York Times Book Review finds it darker and more terrifying than Fever Dream. Renowned for its unsettling quality, as per Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, the collection features stories that provoke and challenge perceptions, making compelling reading, according to the Guardian and the Observer.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780861546466

Publisher: Oneworld Publications

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 07 September 2023

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Oneworld Publications

Contributors:

  • Translated by Megan McDowell
  • Translated by Megan McDowell

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 16.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 208

About the Author

Samanta Schweblin is the author of the novel Fever Dream, a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize, as well as the novel Little Eyes and story collection Mouthful of Birds, both longlisted for the same prize. Her work has won numerous other prestigious awards including the José Donoso Ibero-American Prize for Letters, 2022, and has been translated into thirty-five languages. Her writing has appeared in English in The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine. Originally from Buenos Aires, Schweblin now lives in Berlin.



Megan McDowell has translated books by many contemporary South American and Spanish authors, and her translations have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's and The Paris Review. She lives in Chile.

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  • Seven Empty Houses
    From the Man Booker-shortlisted author of Fever Dream comes a hotly anticipated new collection of eerie short stories. Playful and unsettling, teeming with the energy of barely contained violence, Seven Empty Houses dismantles the neat appearance of domesticity to expose the darkness and discomfort that lies beneath. A neighbour looks on as a couple grieve the loss of their son....
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    No one writes like Samanta Schweblin - Lorrie Moore The strange and explosive new collection from the incomparable imagination of Samanta Schweblin, a master of the short story. A gripping blend of the raw, the astonishing, and the tragic, every story is as perfectly unexpected as a snare: tightly, exquisitely wound, ready to snap at a touch. Here, a young...
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    Amanda knows she has to answer the questions. Lying feverish and unseeing in her hospital bed, she tries her best to account for how she came to be there. She remembers the lake, the house, and the strange woman next door with her unthinkable confession. She remembers the fear of losing her young daughter, Nina. Now she is alone and...
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    The Global Bestseller from the International Booker Prize-shortlisted Author of Fever Dream CONFRONT THE DARKNESS 'A fabulous writer. Her stories are subtle, always haunting and deeply human' - Isabel Allende A young mother steps into the water, determined to end her life. What will bring her back? 'You will find yourself in the space on the other side of terror...
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    NOW A FEATURE FILM COMING SOON TO NETFLIX "Genius." —Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker Finalist for the Man Booker International Prize! Experience the blazing, surreal sensation of a fever dream... A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He's not her child. Together, they tell...
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