For 12 years Paul Sedory trekked across Europe, the Middle East and Africa in search of nothing much in particular. Despite his greatest attempts to avoid purpose, he did have a few (mis)adventures along the way and learned a thing or two. Within these pages you will find observations on philosophy, politics, and religion; on love, romance, and sex; on people, places and the nitty-gritty of backpacker travel.

A dead body is found on a deserted road, the body has been cut into small pieces and abandoned in a suitcase; it has been so badly mutilated that it is unrecognisable. The police believe that the victim could be a junkie or a whore since nobody has bothered to report her missing. They visit the local convent where the nuns are known to have been working with the prostitutes. As the investigation develops, we witness a struggle for power in the convent. Father Moses is sent to investigate the disappearance of one of the nuns and as he unravels the tangled relationships within the convent he begins a journey of self-discovery which ends when he has to decide whether he is to be Jesus or Judas.

The internationally acclaimed author Carlos Fuentes, winner of the Cervantes Prize and the Latin Civilization Award, delivers a stunning work of fiction about family and love across an expanse of Mexican life, reminding us why he has been called “a combination of Poe, Baudelaire, and Isak Dinesen” (Newsweek). In these masterly vignettes, Fuentes explores Tolstoy’s classic observation that “happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” In “A Family Like Any Other,” each member of the Pagan family lives in isolation, despite sharing a tiny house. In “The Mariachi’s Mother,” the limitless devotion of a woman is revealed as she secretly tends to her estranged son’s wounds. “Sweethearts” reunites old lovers unexpectedly and opens up the possibilities for other lives and other loves. These are just a few of the remarkable stories in Happy Families, but they all inhabit Fuentes’s trademark Mexico, where modern obsessions bump up against those of the mythic past, and the result is a triumphant display of the many ways we reach out to one another and find salvation through irrepressible acts of love. In this spectacular translation, the acclaimed Edith Grossman captures the full weight of Fuentes’s range. Whether writing in the language of the street or in straightforward, elegant prose, Fuentes gives us stories connected by love, including the failure of love–between spouses, lovers, parents and children, siblings. From the Mexican presidential palace to the novels of the poor and the vast expanse of humanity in between, Happy Families is a magnificent portrait of modern life in all its complicated beauty, as told by one of the world’s most celebrated writers. Praise for Carlos Fuentes Winner of the Cervantes Prize The Old Gringo “A dazzling novel that possesses the weight and resonance of myth [and] the fierce magic of a remembered dream.” –The New York Times The Death of Artemio Cruz “Remarkable in the scope of the human drama it pictures, the corrosive satire and sharp dialogue.” –The New York Times Book Review The Years with Laura Díaz “Reading this magnificent novel is like standing beneath the dome of the Sistine Chapel. . . . The breadth and enormity of this accomplishment is breathtaking.” –The Denver Post This I Believe “Engaging, offering surprising conclusions, provocations or turns of phrase . . . Put down the page-turner and dare to drink these full-bodied, red, shining words.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review The Eagle’s Throne “Dazzling, razor-sharp . . . prescient . . . a feast of political insight.” –The Washington Post Book World

Learn from the author, the crazy Asian hyperpolyglot on how she managed to speak Spanish fluently in 6 months. In this guidebook, you will learn from the author's personal journey in mastering Spanish in a short 6 months, pains and solutions, free resources and their pros and cons, shortcuts in learning Spanish quickly, hacking the grammar, how to sound more native and a recommended roadmap to lead you to B2 fluency.

This book studies a selection of works of Philippine literature written in Spanish during the American occupation of the Philippines (1902-1946). It explores the place of Filipino nationalism in a selection of fiction and non-fiction texts by Spanish-speaking Filipino writers Jesús Balmori, Adelina Gurrea Monasterio, Paz Mendoza Guazón, and Antonio Abad. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that draws from Anthropology, History, Literary Studies, Cultural Analysis and World Literature, this book offers a comparative analysis of the position of these authors toward the cultural transformations that have taken place as a result of the Philippines' triple history of colonization (by Spain, the US, and Japan) while imagining an independent nation. Engaging with an untapped archive, this book is a relevant and timely contribution to the fields of both Filipino and Hispanic literary studies.

A novella set in the hard-scrabble world of James S. A. Corey's NYT-bestselling Expanse series, Strange Dogs follows a family of colonists on Laconia where a new generation of humanity struggles with the profound changes that come with making a home on an alien world. Now a Prime Original series. This story will be available in the complete Expanse story collection, Memory’s Legion. HUGO AWARD WINNER FOR BEST SERIES Like many before them, Cara and her family ventured through the gates as scientists and researchers, driven to carve out a new life and uncover the endless possibilities of the unexplored alien worlds now within reach. But soon the soldiers followed and under this new order Cara makes a discovery that will change everything. The Expanse Leviathan Wakes Caliban's War Abaddon's Gate Cibola Burn Nemesis Games Babylon's Ashes Persepolis Rising Tiamat's Wrath ​Leviathan Falls Memory's Legion The Expanse Short Fiction Drive The Butcher of Anderson Station Gods of Risk The Churn The Vital Abyss Strange Dogs Auberon The Sins of Our Fathers

As a child, all Aatish Taseer ever had of his father was his photograph in a browning silver frame. Raised by his Sikh mother in Delhi, his Pakistani father remained a distant figure, almost a figment of his imagination, until Aatish crossed the border when he was twenty-one to finally meet him. In the years that followed, the relationship between father and son revived, then fell apart. For Aatish, their tension had not just to do with the tensions of a son rediscovering his absent father — they were intensified by the fact that Aatish was Indian, his father Pakistani and Muslim. It had complicated his parents’ relationship; now it complicated his. The relationship forced Aatish to ask larger questions: Why did being Muslim mean that your allegiances went out to other Muslims before the citizens of your own country? Why did his father, despite claiming to be irreligious, describe himself as a ‘cultural Muslim’? Why did Muslims see modernity as a threat? What made Islam a trump identity? Stranger to History is the story of the journey Aatish made to answer these questions — starting from Istanbul, Islam’s once greatest city, to Mecca, its most holy, and then home, through Iran and Pakistan. Ending in Lahore, at his estranged father’s home, on the night Benazir Bhutto was killed, it is also the story of Aatish’s own divided family over the past fifty years. Part memoir, part travelogue, probing, stylish and troubling, Stranger to History is an outstanding debut. ‘I had sought out my father because I couldn't live with the darkness of not knowing him. If I hadn't, all my life I would have had to cover it up with some idea of him taken from my mother on faith. I felt it would have limited me. History should never be taken on faith.’