Böcker av Osvaldo Soriano

In Winter Quarters two performers past their prime have come to the provincial town of Colonia Vela, the setting of A Funny Dirty Little War, to open a local festival. Strangers to each other, this worn-out boxer and has-been tango singer become loyal friends -- even unto death. The boxer has been selected to fight the local hero, the army's champ who has national ambitions. It soon becomes clear that the town vigilantes and military toughs don't mean for any trophies -- or the mayor's daughter -- to go to these "losers". As the underdogs try to go the distance, Soriano's gritty, Chandleresque prose builds a harrowing picture of a society in the grip of a bizarre and terrifying struggle.

"This fierce little novel tells the story of a political con­frontation in a remote village in Argentina. Obscure differences between Peronist supporters and leaders escalate in a crescendo of violence to the final massacre. The characters, who with each event evolve from the comic and grotesque to the tragic, are observed by the author with a cool, dispassionate gaze, though in end we are left with a feeling of bitter pity. This is because, in spite of all their moral and mental wretchedness, in spite of the emptiness of their ambitions and fanaticism, they themselves are poor victims."Italo CalvinoA Funny Dirty Little War marries the Keystone Kops and Kafka.