Ghosts by César Aira

César Aira

César Aira is an Argentine writer and translator, and an exponent of Argentine contemporary literature. He has published over fifty books of stories, novels and essays...

 was first published under the title Los Fantasmas in 1990. Chris Andrews’ English translation was published by New Directions in 2009. It was nominated for the 2010 Best Translated Book Award

Best Translated Book Award

Best Translated Book Award is an annual literature award given by Three Percent, the online literature magazine of Open Letter Books, which is the book translation press of the University of Rochester. It is awarded to the best original translation published that year. A long list and short list...

shortlist.

Summary

Ghosts takes place in an unfinished luxury apartment complex in Buenos Aires that is shared by a family of squatters and a cadre of ghosts that haunt its floors. While most of the construction workers and family members react to the ghosts with detachment, the family's teenage daughter becomes fixated on the specters. As the story weaves away and back again towards the date set for the opening of the apartment complex, the daughter's obsession with the ghosts becomes more complex and nefarious, and ultimately threatens her life.

External links

• "The Chris Andrews Interview," interview by Scott Bryan Wilson in The Quarterly Conversation, Summer 2007
• "César Aira," by Maria Moreno in BOMB magazine, issue 106, Winter 2006
• LibraryThing page for César Aira