Damas, caballeros y planetas
Ladies, Gentlemen, and Planets | Literatura Random House, 2023
The stories gathered here could be called “selected stories,” and if they have anything in common, it’s that they’re out of this world. Literally. They’re set in laughably absurd corners of the galaxy. With wit and imagination that yield for nothing and no one, Laura Fernández reinvents our world through infinite other worlds inhabited by famous mutant detectives, ghost journalists, dinosaur clerks, self-powered airships that can’t seem to shut up, lemon trees that aren’t quite what they seem, and denizens of other planets who would fit in quite well on our own.
These novels in miniature showcase the lush universe that Laura Fernández has been building and expanding over the course of fifteen years. In addition to previously published stories—which have appeared in all sorts of publications and anthologies—Damas, caballeros y planetas includes a new foreword and other new texts from the author herself, including a never-before-published novella and new story. One of the most audacious, brilliant, singular, and gifted writers in our literary panorama—the recipient of several fiction prizes, including the Ojo Crítico, Librerías Recomiendan, Finestres and Kelvin 505 prizes for La Señora Potter no es exactamente Santa Claus—is back.
«Damas, caballeros y planetas delves into a stunning world of dinosaur bureaucrats, personified airships, playful aliens, and hilarious pangalactic institutions. The finished product? A short-story cocktail full of tales that delight and excite.» Jesús Ferrer, La Razón
«Laura Fernández has created a world that’s as fantastical as it is real and coherent, a galaxy where the readers see the artifice and have twice the fun because of it, since that’s part of the charm.» Eva Cosculluela, ABC Cultural
«Hiding deep inside, there’s a beautiful first-personal letter about literature, the pleasure of reading, and the vocation of the writer.» Nadal Suau, El Cultural
«The reader is led by the hand to the inception of, and keys to, an original, infinite, fascinating literary work.» Aloma Rodríguez, La Lectura
«Reading Laura Fernández will rekindle the curiosity, amazement, and glee you felt as a little kid reading a book under the sheets with a flashlight.» Alejandra Lata de Diego, librería Berbiriana (A Coruña)
«With the pen of Philip K. Dick and the humor of Douglas Adams, Frederic Brown, or Robert Sheckley, Laura Fernández is brilliant. Read her!» Antonio Torrubia, librería Gigamesh (Barcelona)
«A sense of humor and wit beyond anything terrestrial AI we could possibly imagine.» Lola Larumbe, librería Alberti (Madrid)
«After hurling a rock into the placid water of Spanish literature with La señora Potter no es exactamente Santa Claus, John Fante and Rodrigo Fresán’s best student reaffirms her ambition and skill in this collection of brutal short stories, this literary autobiography, this fragmentary mirror of the reader within us.» Jorge Carrión, Infobae
