The Appearance of Gods

Horacio Quiroga’s name is widely known throughout Latin America. On every page of his “Tales of the Jungle,” an amazing world unfolds—full of exotic animals and rare plants. Like Andersen, the Grimm brothers, Charles Perrault, and other famous storytellers, Quiroga strives, through his tales, to teach readers kindness and instill a love of justice.

Horacio Quiroga (1878–1937) is called the founder of Latin American literature. It is no coincidence that some writers referred to Quiroga as “Kipling of the Misiones Jungle”: just as Kipling does, he helps us vividly imagine his characters—animals—so much that we almost believe we’ve seen them alive somewhere, and if we meet them, we’ll recognize them without difficulty. Only one small book was titled “Tales of the Jungle”—a book he wrote for his children, perhaps not realizing that he was writing it for the children of the whole world.

The “Tales of the Jungle” do not merely entertain a child. They provide real knowledge about nature. And it’s not only that from these tales a child learns about new animals and their habits. The child is shown the complexity of the natural world, the drama of relationships between nature and people. The stories included in this book have an important quality: there is nothing in them that would be inaccessible to children aged five to seven. And there is a great deal that sparks a child’s imagination.

The author of novellas and novels about the dark, fateful forces of nature and the human psyche, suffused with shadowy fantasy in the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe. He is also known for his stories about jungle nature and animals, which became popular with children of several generations; in them one can find traits akin to those in Kipling’s “Jungle Book.”

Contents:
Quiroga — The Appearance of the Gods
Quiroga — The Wonderful Wanderer
Quiroga — Knock-knock-knock, Open the Door
Quiroga — The Wicked Stepmother