El matadero (y apologia del matambre)

El Matadero, considered a cornerstone of the Latin American prose, depicts a characteristic scene of the terrible times in Argentina before its institutionalization as a democratic republic.

Echeverría in this short story according to his friend Juan María Gutiérrez "performs as a painter that opens his sketchbook to quickly depict in general strokes the scenes of a public street, saving them to compose a customs picture, later and in the quietness of his shop".

This deceivingly straightforward plot and elegant prose is based on an almost criptic lexicon.

In these mere 27 pages there are no less than 87 notes needed to convey the exact meaning intended by the author!

This edition includes the elegant and witty "Apology of the thin flank" (apología del matambre). If pictorial sketches are valuable as clues to the painter’s genius, the Apología… depicts the Echeverría, author of "Dogma Socialista" and simultaneously friend of Juan Bautista Alberdi, author of the basis of the Argentine Constitution, written following the same guidelines as the Constitution of the United States of America.