Travel to one of the most beautiful cities in the world in the company of its finest writers. Walk the mysterious nighttime streets of Prague with Franz Kafka and Jaroslav Hasek, eavesdrop on intimate conversations in restaurants and lively beer halls with Karel Capek and Bohumil Hrabal, listen to jazz in stylish nightclubs with Josef Skvorecky. The stories in this volume many of which appear in English for the first time will take you on a personal odyssey through the city's stormy past to its dynamic present. For the traveler who wishes to experience something of its essence, Prague...

Since relations between the U.S. and Vietnam have normalized, many more people are traveling to this exotic country, previously closed to a generation of Western visitors. Vietnam provides one of the first chances for Americans to know the Vietnamese outside the context of war. Vietnamese have been telling stories for thousands of years, in poetry and in song, in Chinese script and then in Vietnamese nom, and more recently, in novels and short stories. These 17 stories, from contemporary Vietnamese writers living in Vietnam and abroad, take the literary traveler to extraordinary...

A perfect way of looking into a country, inside its houses and apartment buildings, at its weddings and feuds and even wars.--Na'amat Woman. Collectively, the pieces present a view of Israeli life seldom encountered by tourists or other outsiders.--Library Journal. Map.

Travel to Cuba in the company of its finest writers and gain an understanding of its remarkable mystique. The twenty-one stories in this collection some of which appear in English for the first time will take you on an odyssey through the country's rich past to its dynamic present, where it is poised at the brink of immense change. Arranged by the areas of Cuba they illuminate, these stories offer up a rich literary banquet. Contributors include Luis Aguilar Leon, Maria Eugenia Alegria Nunez, Uva de Aragon, Reinaldo Arenas, Richard Blanco, Lino Novas Calvo, Calvert Casey, Alfonso Hernandez...

Explore Spain's rich literary landscape with some of the country's best contemporary writers. Arranged geographically, these thirty stories -- many of which appear in English for the first time -- transport the reader through Spain's many enchanting regions: experience a bull-run with Juan Goytisolo in Albacete, join Bernardo Atxaga in a Basque village, travel to the misty woods of Galicia with Manuel Rivas, and reminisce with Julio Llamazares over black-and-white photos of his childhood Spain.

The twenty stories in Chile: A Traveler's Literary Companion -- most of which are available here for the first time in English -- reveal that the nation that gave birth to two poets who won Nobel prizes in literature is also the home of many world-class prose writers. This collection evokes the diversity of the country's landscape and the complexity of its recent history. Contributors include Luis Alberto Acuna, Marjorie Agosin, Roberto Ampuero, Marta Brunet, Francisco Coloane, Adolfo Couve, Jose Donoso, Ariel Dorfman, Jorge Edwards, Beatriz Garcia-Huidobro, Pedro Lemebel, Patricio...