Announcing a short-notice edition of the Mudd Up Book Clubb.

We are meeting this Sunday, March 24rd, to discuss Augusto Monterroso’s short story “Mister Taylor.”

Those unfamiliar with the Guatemalan writer who lived most of his life in Mexico City are in for a treat! Monterroso’s agile and darkly comic meditations on “resource extraction,” colonial mentality, distribution chains, citizen-hostile bureaucracy, and the impact of North American appetites on life in Latin America pack as much of a multilayered punch now as they did when “Mister Taylor” was first published, sixty years ago. Nuanced and outrageous.

Here’s the first sentence, from Edith Grossman’s pitch-perfect translation:

“Somewhat less strange, though surely more exemplary,” the other man said, “is the story of Mr. Percy Taylor, a headhunter in the Amazon jungle.”

The original Spanish text is online, the English trans. will be provided in advance (it’s a fast read, takes less than 10 minutes), and we’ll meet at 5pm on Sunday in this special short-notice edition… Interested? Join us. Keep it muddy.