Edmundo Paz Soldan. Dochera y otros cuentos. La Paz. Nuevo Milenio. 1998. 59 pages. ISBN 9972-642-02-X.

Lindstrom, Naomi

Bolivian-born Edmundo Paz Soldan (b. 1967), currently a faculty member at Cornell University, has demonstrated a talent for attracting the attention of the literary public. Along with the Chilean Alberto Fuguet, the Argentine Rodrigo Fresan, and others, he is more or less associated with the McOndo alliance of younger fiction writers. McOndo is a loosely connected group of writers, a youth movement united largely by the participants' combative disdain for the magical realism of their parents' generation and their habit of inserting intextual links to mass culture in their fiction. It resulted in public appearances by the group at conferences and a collective multiauthored anthology under the key word McOndo.

In 1997 Paz Soldan earned a different type of attention when his story "Dochera" was awarded the Premio Juan Rulfo for short fiction. The volume Dochera contains the prizewinning story and two other examples of Paz Soldan's shorter fiction. The story "Dochera" in no way makes readers conscious of the youth of the author or the generational status of the main character. Instead, one notices the very professional execution of a tale of obsession. "Dochera" is a worthy new entry in the tradition of narratives that follow the protagonist into complete absorption in an all-consuming intellectual activity, whether chess or metaphysics. Here it is the construction of crossword puzzles that takes over the chief character's mind.

Paz Soldan has expertly woven into his story a number of clever twists. The most significant of these is the protagonist's leap beyond merely constructing puzzles out of already-existing words. In his most creative phase, he constructs a new world via an amazing series of puzzles in which he gets to decide arbitrarily how all things should be named. Although these new puzzles cannot be solved, the more avant- garde connoisseurs of crossword puzzles still prefer them to those made out of preexisting words. The tale of this verbal obsession is intricately worked together with a story of amorous obsession, resulting in an extremely elegant and inventive narrative design. One of the story's most appealing features is that it really is grounded in the arcane culture of the crossword puzzle, its peculiar verbal repertory, its makers, and its demanding, addicted public.

The other two stories, "Cuando tu no estabas" and "La escena del crimen," are both ingenious new takes on the tale of murder and detection. As in "Dochera," what most stands out is the author's ability to set up clever twists and turns.

Although Dochera is an unusually brief volume, it effectively showcases the author's knack for ringing new changes on some traditional narrative setups. The diabolical "Dochera" is the one true standout in the collection, but throughout, the fiction is amusing, stylish, and full of surprises.

Naomi Lindstrom

University of Texas, Austin