The Little Buddhist Monk & The Proof

One of the most popular and prolific contemporary Argentine authors, Aira has written more than 90, mostly shorter, books, only a handful of which have been translated into English (Ema the Captive). This volume collects two novellas. In "The Little Buddhist Monk," dating from 2005, a diminutive monk wants to leave his native Korea for the West. Luckily, he runs into a tall, fat French photographer and his cartoonist wife, who hire him as their tour guide to Korean temples, but his hope of having them take him back home with them is dashed when they abandon him. This mythical world repeats Aira's penchant for satire and digressions, this time into the history of the Korean alphabet. In an altogether different vein is the earlier and more somber "The Proof" (1992). Two lesbian punks, Mao and Lenin, wanting to seduce the adolescent Marcia, first spend time conversing in a café, and then, to prove what love is, commit a violently homicidal act in a grocery store before the three escape.