Shortlisted for the Premio Valle Inclán,2020

Nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award,2019

A SPELLBINDING COLLECTION OF STORIES FROM A MAJOR INTERNATIONAL LITERARY STAR

The crunch of a bird's wing.

A cloud of butterflies,so beautiful it smothers.

A crimson flash of blood across an artist's canvas.

Spine-tingling and unexpected,unearthly and strange,the stories of Mouthful of Birds are impossible to forget. Samanta Schweblin's writing expertly blurs the line between the surreal and the everyday,pulling the reader into a world that is at once nightmarish and beautiful. An exhilarating tour de force guaranteed to leave the pulse racing.

Publisher: Oneworld PublicationsISBN: 9781786076694Number of pages: 240Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 18 mm

'In this slim and superb book,Schweblin takes on the desire to love,to parent,and to care for one's own body - hardly extraordinary themes - and invests them with a fresh poignancy.'

'The Grimm brothers and Franz Kafka pay a visit to Argentina in Samanta Schweblin's darkly humorous tales of people who have slipped through cracks or fallen down holes into alternate realities.'

'The author of the magnetic,scalp-pricklingFever Dream returns with stories as Gothic and incantatory as a telltale heart- virtuoso fiction from Argentina's own Edgar Allan Poe.'

'Spritely and uncanny,this is a beautifully imagined and skilfully executed collection of stories.'

'So strange and beautiful.'

'Impressive... Schweblin is among the most acclaimed Spanish-language writers of her generation.'

'This is our world,and sharp-focused,but stripped of its usual meanings... Brutal violence is twisted into horrific,intensely experienced art.'

'These wild,unsettling,absurdist tales cement her status as a penetrating voice in modern fiction.'

'(Schweblin's) particular genius lies in thefact that there's something inherently savage and ungovernable about her work... The finest offerings here beg to be illustrated by Paula Rego then animated by David Lynch... Schweblin herself puts it best: "Horror and beauty! What a combination!"

'Starting a story by the Argentinian Samanta Schweblin is like tumbling into a dark hole with no idea where you'll end up.'

'Samanta Schweblin's strange,haunting and stunningly beautiful collection of short stories... Many of these stories got under my skin and lingered with me long after I'd put the book down.'

'At once fantastically out there and real to the point of being haunting.'

'Schweblin is adept at creating...surreal images,distilled from our latent desires and preoccupations.'

'Delving into the cryptic depths of the human psyche,this is a highly imaginative and thought-provoking collection,deftly translated by Megan McDowell.'

'Like its butterfly-carpeted jacket design,Mouthful of Birds has an eerie,disconcerting beauty that will preoccupy you long after you put it down.'

'Schweblin's Man Booker-shortlisted novel Fever Dream was unsettling and uncanny and these 20 brilliant stories,translated by Megan McDowell,are just as fabulous... an eerie blend of the supernatural and the all too real.'

'These are fictions of indisputable power,presenting modern life as a farcical horror show in which our limitations and destructive appetites have made us ugly,ridiculous and doomed.'

'Schweblin is a masterful technician and builds elegant character arcs and narratives that accelerate in esoteric ways. While the content may be peculiar,the form is meticulous. The collection is chock-full of masterful reversals,last-minute turns that showcase Schweblin's ability to carry a story to a satisfying close...thrilling.'

'The best pieces in Mouthful of Birds,translated by Megan McDowell,create the same disconcerting tension as Schweblin's excellent novella Fever Dream,and tread a similar line between realism and the supernatural.'

'Modern horror at its most bewitching and resonant.'

'Eerily unnerving and nightmarish.'

'These fabulist half-light tales leave some elements tantalisingly unsaid or off-page,but are sharpened through her technique and clarity of prose.'

'Schweblin's relentless style is engrossing.'

'Schweblin's imagination seemingly knows no bounds.'

'Samanta Schweblin's Mouthful of Birds - featuring a literal mouthful of birds - will mesmerise as it disturbs... It's difficult to do justice to Schweblin's relentlessly destabilising tone; just read the book,though perhaps only in daylight.'

'If you were a fan ofFever Dream,Schweblin's Man Booker International Prize-shortlisted nightmarish novella,brace yourself for this similarly surreal "unearthly"and "unsettling"collection of short stories. If you're a stranger to her work,take JM Coetzee's word for it: "The Grimm Brothers and Franz Kafka pay a visit to Argentina in Samanta Schweblin's darkly humorous tales of people who have slipped through the cracks or fallen down holes into alternative realities".'

'Schweblin once again deploys a heavy dose of nightmare fuel in this frightening,addictive collection... Canny,provocative and profoundly unsettling.'

'Schweblin builds dense and uncanny worlds,probing the psychology of human relationships and the ways we perceive existence and interpret culture,with dark humour and sharp teeth... An unquestionably imaginative author.'

'A writer in full control on the page. Her language is economical,yet supremely effective at creating a tense,claustrophobic atmosphere; shadows lurk behind the words left unwritten,the sentences that refuse to reveal the hidden things just around the corner.'

'Samanta has a unique,inventive voice,and her stories have this ability to veer off into strange and unexpected territories with sublime grace. I admire and envy this gift.'

'Surreal and haunting,spare yet complex,Samanta Schweblin's fiction is like little else being written right now.'

'Impressive.(A Mouthful of Birds) showsSchweblin'sgloriously unsettlingly,sinister imagination at play... Schweblin (is) one of the most exciting Spanish-language writers of her generation.'

'Mouthful of Birds is a resounding success... Schweblin's writing has a sparseness,a restraint to it that belies its psychological complexity. She is astutely aware of the close ties between memory and desire. And her pacing is impeccable.'

'Surreal,disturbing and decidedly original.'

'The twists in the plots are like hard handbrake turns,perspectives shift with a screech...Listed inThe Mancunion's most anticipated books of 2019,Mouthful of Birdscomes strongly recommended.'

'(Schweblin) can evoke more feelings in one sentence than many writers can in a whole story...Mouthful of Birdsis a stunning achievement from a writer whose potential is beginning to seem limitless.'

'What separates Schweblin from the pack is the firm foot she has planted in frank horror,and her laconic style...Mouthful of Birdsis precisely that rare mix: beauty and horror.'

'Dark,unsettling images,a sort of half-fevered,all-dazed awareness of the world outside. Schweblin is an absolute master.'

'Schweblin is back with this book of short stories,each more unnerving than the last,and all with the unique ability to leave you with that throbbing,pulsing feeling following an electric shock or a sleepless night or a solid scare or all of the above.'

'(Schweblin's) command of her material is scintillating... A sense of unknowability lingers over these stories,producing a shiver of fright as well as a curious sense of dislocation... Her stories explore the grotesque and the horrifying,though they might be labelled beautiful,skilful creations,or even pieces of art.'

'Clever and morbidly funny.'

'Mouthful of Birds is a resounding success. The stories in the Man Booker International-longlisted collection are dark,vivid and beautiful.'

'A collection of 20 brilliant stories.'

'Many of these scenarios are far too close to the truth,and this collection makes for engrossing bedtime reading.'

'The Argentine Samanta Schweblin's writerly gaze,like that of Australia's Peter Carey or Janette Turner Hospital,remains trained upon her homeland.'

'Girls eating live birds,butterfly clouds,cinematic scenes and many other bizarre stories make up this collection. Schweblin writes the most enticing first paragraphs and I thoroughly savoured the weird and not-so-weird stories in all their darkness.'

'Each story is a dive into a bizarre unknown.'

'Schweblin writes beautifully and without any willingness to reveal the magic behind it. Her stories happen fluidly,and they don't give up their ghosts or end in clear-cut denouements...I loved the darkly atmospheric creepiness that permeates Schweblin's writing with her words almost like ripples on the margins of some dangerous submerged whirlpool that as deadly as it is,will suck you in.'