This Collection of very short stories contains a treasure trove of surprise endings, some cheery, some chilling most of them impossible to see coming. The author explores powerful and universal themes like unrequited love, revenge, treachery and the unequal battle between men equipped with nothing but hend tools and the savage strength of nature. And they all take place in a setting that is impleccably described and uniquely Costa Rican, like this passage from “The Gourd”, the most heart-breaking story this author has ever written: “March would bring sunsets featuring a sun as large as an ox cart wheel painted with red lead, and it would fill the house with a chromatic harmony;...” Long considered an icon of Costa Rican literature, this small book is a tour de force that weds graphic art with literary art in order to provide one unforgettable reading experience...

In July 2005, by chance, the Guatemalan National Police Archive was discovered in Guatemala City. They are millions of documents that are piled up in damp, dark rooms full of rats and cockroaches. They have been left there after the peace was signed in 1996 after more than 30 years of war...

It is a novel in which the characters and historical times alternate in the dizzying plot that offers a fresco of the last fifty years of Guatemala. Taking seriously her hairdresser and pedicurist's reading of the lines on the sole of her foot, Fabiola, an upper-class woman in her fifties, begins the unbridled search for an old teenage love in which she pin her hopes of getting out of a cycle family oppression and violence. She is anxious and desperate, she finds herself in a parallel world but very different from her own, with which she without realizing it she has sometimes brushed against throughout life.The novel is a great metaphor for a divided and confronted country, which does not stop having hilarious and suspenseful moments that leave readers with smiles or wild-eyed disbelief at the unexpected twists of the plot...

Amusement park is a woman's look at the worlds: that of every day, that of secrets and that of desires. The book is constructed in several voices recounting the disagreement, the lack and the emptiness. Speaking of love and heartbreak, it lets us see the apparent, deformed or elongated realities...

This work is the compilation of some very significant stories in the oral literature of Limón. The protagonist of these brief stories is a spider known as Brother Anancy. The stories came from Africa along with religious, cultural and social traditions that are still preserved in many parts of America, among the African-American population...

These poems by Juan Carlos Olivas tenderly destroy what was done wrong or lightly and propose to go back to basics and not waste words. They help us study our unworthiness and then purify ourselves. It also has the award of the UNA-WORD 2011 Award, a distinction obtained in the Poetry category...

Autoretrato UNA Danza Joven 2003-2019 presenta una recopilación fotográfica de la experiencia y práctica artística realizada por el proyecto UNA Danza Joven (UNADJ) de la Escuela de Danza de la Universidad Nacional. Contiene imágenes de gran valor poético que dialogan entre si y la mirada fresca del público que adquiera este libro y baile con él...

A fallen angel and a lofty demon progressively discover their humanity, their own and that of the other, and together they light the trembling flame of love… A love without fuss, anchored in the present and away from social clichés on the subject...

Novel that won the 2004 UNA-Word Contest Prize. With a remarkable command of language and narrative techniques, its author creates an atmosphere of the underworld of the rufian and nocturnal San José. The narrator places us in the physical and psychological twists and turns of the dark and sad belly of the city: morgue, bars, streets, prisons, with its diverse supply of drugs, vices, baseness and murky affairs. A contribution to the contemporary Costa Rican narrative...

In 1879 a fratricidal war began in which Chile faced Peru and Bolivia for the rich territories where natural nitrate was extracted, a source of great wealth at the end of the 19th century. Luciano Cruz Márquez, a young man from a rural area, joins the Chilean armed forces, filled with patriotic fervor and convinced that he will participate in a just war to defend the national interest...

En 1972 la Editorial Costa Rica fue cuestionada por la presencia de autores comunistas en su catálogo y toma de decisiones. A 13 años de su creación, no era la primera vez. Había pasado también, por ejemplo, en 1960 y 1968. En esta ocasión, la Liga Cívica de Mujeres Costarricenses asumió la edición de A ras del suelo de Luisa González y la presencia del "dictaminador" de obras Carlos Luis Sáenz, como un gesto de protección al comunismo por parte de la Editorial. Para esta pequeña comunidad de lectoras, las autorías comunistas o socialistas eran a su juicio de "tendencia desmoralizadora" y la edición de obras como ésta fortalecía a un partido (¿socialista o comunista?) "que tiende a destruir los fundamentos de la organización democrática"...

This anthology of contemporary Costa Rican poetry offers the reader a gratifying overview of an important part of this Central American Country’s literature...

The fundamental objective of the book Costa Rican Biographies is to bring together, in a single work, characters who, due to their outstanding activity, deserve to be located and studied, without having to travel a long way...

It is important that today's children have the opportunity to learn about yesterday's legends and create national awareness about the importance of collecting, transmitting and learning about the culture, folklore and traditional history of our country.This material is a compilation of magazines, books and newspapers, but it serves as a stimulus to carry out investigations of the stories and legends extracted from the popular voice, as well as from the sources themselves where traditions are born. This will make our citizens, adults, youth and children acquire a true awareness of the folklore of this country...

In the year 2400, a teenager learns the truth about the scientific experiments that have made “mind transferring” possible. Given the implications of this discovery, Robert will face the mastermind of such an operation: Doctor Victor Stein...

Cure of madness is a text of fantastic stories where the writer Carlos Manuel Villalobos pays tribute to the great exponents of this genre. Here is the imprint of Dostoevsky, Poe, Kafka, Calvino, Cortázar, Borges and many of the universal authors who have participated in the task of imagining the extraordinary...

Dead that Never Die by Miguel Calderón evokes many aspects of Central American culture. Peasant lives, myths, popular legends, peoples' emancipatory ideals, religious consciousness, political struggles, epic episodes of collective memory. We walked between Juan Rulfo, García Márquez, Rafael Scorza, Alejo Carpentier, Augusto Roa Bastos, and other Latin American writers who found in the imaginary and popular experience a source of inspiration for their masterful stories.Thus appear ideals such as those of Augusto Cesar Sandino, Farabundo Martí, General Tijerino or Carlos Fonseca, who with their lives inspire the emancipatory struggles. This is a multifaceted story: existential, social and political, at the same time, like all human stories, since we are individuals, citizens, peoples, nations, cultures, social classes, genders...

For all of us it is essential to become aware of the unusualness of our current favorable position, and that precisely for this reason no woman can afford to postpone her research in collective life, leaving it for futures that no one can guarantee...

Drone without north, drone that flies and hits here, there, beyond, is the title that serves as an image to narrate a lively world of anecdotes. In an entertaining way, it presents the lurching of a student in the alma mater (soul that nourishes; mater, mother) lurching that began at the Liceo de Heredia and found spaces in the Escuela Normal de Costa Rica (Escuela de Pedagogía, such as the called his students), the Higher Normal School, the University of Costa Rica, the National University and, almost finally, since the Drone hints that it can even take flight, the State University at a Distance.The narratives may interest any reader who wishes to know about the experiences of a higher education student of Humanities, Philosophy, Pedagogy and Arts in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in Costa Rica...

Premio Universidad Nacional 2023Elena relaciona lo acontecido hace más de tres mil años con lo que sucede en el mundo actual. Advierte que las peores trampas se esconden en formas disimuladas, como la estatua de madera que provocó la destrucción de Troya, la legendaria ciudad de sus antepasados. Por eso recomienda acatar el único mandamiento de su pueblo: No dejarse engañar por la yegua de Troya...