La Pereza Ediciones decidio agrupar siete relatos de la gran escritora neozelandesa Katherine Mansfield. En una cuidada reedicion con la que la casa de publicaciones ha querido estrenar su sello Bovarismos, dedicado a la literatura femenina clasica y contemporanea, se encuentra desde el conocido cuento “La fiesta en el jardin”, hasta el que lleva el titulo del libro, “El desconocido”, uno de los relatos menos compilados en la obra narrativa de Mansfield, pero tan encantador como todos los de esta genial autora, inconmovible al paso de los tiempos.

Although Katherine Mansfield was born in New Zealand in 1888, she spent much of her short life in England and on the Continent. As she wrote about the privileged worlds she encountered there, her stories quickly attracted literary attention. Prelude was hand-published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf at their Hogarth Press. Readers today still applaud the grace with which Mansfield fuses image, mood and meaning. Here are ten of Katherine Mansfield’s extraordinary tales. The exquisite narration by Jenny Sterlin gracefully captures both their subtle moments and their startling revelations. A whispered phrase, a ring twisting on a finger-each becomes a symbol for the broader emotional forces at work. Included are: The Baron, The Modern Soul, Prelude, At the Bay, Bliss, The Man Without a Temperament, The Daughter of the Late Colonel, The Garden-Party, Miss Brill, and The Doll’s House.

The fifteen stories collected in this volume demonstrate the genius of a woman who, in her own short lifetime, was compared to Chekhov. The tales are sensitive revelations of human behavior in ordinary situations. With careful, quiet observation, Mansfield illuminates complicated relationships and profound, often troubling ideas. Her stories often feature young women in the process of maturity, confronting for the first time some of the realities of life.

In the title story, a young woman’s garden party coincides with the death of a working-class neighbor, bringing a brush of mortality and realism into her carefully constructed plans and ideals. Her difficulty in fully realizing the seriousness of the event is typical of Mansfield’s ironic world.