El extraordinario viaje de Prudence

First published in 1900 Uruguay, Ariel is Latin America's most famous essay on esthetic and philosophical sensibility, as well as its most discussed treatise on hemispheric relations. Though Rodó protested the interpretation, his allegorical conflict between Ariel, the lover of beauty and truth, and Caliban, the evil spirit of materialism and positivism, has come to be regarded as a metaphor for the conflicts and cultural differences between Latin America and the United States. Generations of statesmen, intellectuals, and literary figures have been formed by this book, either in championing...

The summer has really bad for Manolito. He is condemned, once again, to spend the holidays in his small flat in Carabanchel Alto with his mother, his grandfather and his little brother. And he has failed mathematics, to his mother's chagrin. Manolito looks forward to the arrival of his father, a truck driver, to take the family to the beach.

En una época en que es prioritaria la formación de lectores en serie, que asimilen varias docenas de libros al año, para satisfacer los índices internacionales sobre cultura y desarrollo, cualquier enunciado en contra parecería una contumacia fundamentalista. Sin embargo, la lectura enfrenta un presente multimediático –donde la imagen se subordina al texto– y por consecuencia no es ya la única forma de acceder a grandes cúmulos de información. Por otra parte, el sentido de una vida no se resuelve necesariamente en los libros. Además, el saber leer o hacerlo regularmente tampoco...

Just as philosophy begins with doubt, life worthy of being called human begins with irony. This quote by Kierkegaard leads an essay that traces a journey through irony and its uses from Socrates to Foster Wallace, up to its use in our societies marked by "mass public conversation."