In the great flowering of Latin American literature over the last three decades, the short story has played a key role. Some of the celebrated masters of the novel have excelled in this more succinct and accessible form. This is true of Carpentier, Rulfo, Cortazar, Garcia Marquez and the other authors of the seven stories gathered here. Graded according to difficulty, these stories offer a brilliant insight into Spanish America. They range over the extent of its geography, from Mexico and the Caribbean to the Southern Cone, and probe its varied and complex societies.The seven short stories are: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's La prodigiosa tarde de Baltazar, Julio Cortazar's La isla a mediodia, Jorge Edwards' La experiencia, Juan Rulfo's Diles que no me maten, Mario Beneditti's Los novios, Augusto Roa Bastos' El baldio and Alejo Carpentier's Viaje a la semilla. Part of the Bristol Classical Press series of Spanish texts, this is a collection of stories from Spanish America. The series is designed to meet the needs of the fast-growing A Level and undergraduate market for texts in the Spanish language. Each text comes with English notes and vocabulary, and with an introduction by an editor with an expert knowledge both of the work and of its literary and cultural context.