In the October issue of Shelf Unbound indie book review magazine, we featured The Private Lives of Trees by Chilean Alejandro Zambra, translated into English by Megan McDowell. “Zambra in English is a gift I hope English-speaking readers will take advantage of,” McDowell wrote in Shelf Unbound. I will make this same statement about UK literary magazine and publisher Granta’s The Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists, published last week concurrently in Spanish and English. The collection of short stories is indeed a gift to English-speaking audiences, introducing us to 22 writers under 35 (including Zambra), giving voice to a post-dictatorship generation. “For them, censorship, blacklists, exile and persecution are historical facts rather than actual memories, although it is obvious that they have had to fight other difficulties and fears,” write editors Aurelio Major and Valerie Miles, referring to the “quotidian” rather than political nature of most of the stories.

I highly recommend this fantastic — and important — collection, available at www.granta.com, and on Granta’s behalf invite you to join their launch party on Twitter tomorrow, November 30, from 9 to 11 a.m. Eastern time, using the searchable hash tag #literatura. Shelf Unbound will see you there.