Mogador: The Names of the Air

Set in an imaginary walled city off the coast of Morocco, Mogador traces the days and nights of Fatma, a young woman who finds herself suddenly seized by desire. As she wanders the city's maze of erotic pleasures, she encounters other desiring bodies and the desperate worlds those desires create. Here is a vital fusion of Latin America magical realism with Arabic geometric and mystical imagery, written in a style the author calls a "prose of intensities."

Alberto Ruy Snchez has written many works of fiction as well as literary and art criticism. He was an editor of Octavo Paz's Vuelta and is now editor and chief of Artes de Mexico.

Mark Schafer has translated works by Virgilio Piniera and, with Cedric Belfrage, The Book of Eduardo Galeano.