The Interior World

In one of the stories by Frank O’Connor, “The Ugly Duckling” — the title is of course a reference to Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairy tale, but this story about a tomboy girl is as Irish as it gets — there is a wonderful observation about certain types of people who, because of certain inadequacy…

Snow

It has snowed for the first time just a few days ago and the city is still all covered in white. There is something magical about the first snow of the year. And even if, months later, you get absolutely tired of all that white and cold and yearn for spring and flowers and warmth,…

Sympathy for the Irish

It seems that there have just been some riots in Dublin. The details are not very clear, but apparently a few schoolchildren were stabbed by an Algerian migrant, right on Parnell Square, which led to fighting and then to a more generalized anti-government riots, with cars being burned and clashes with the police which are…

Argentina’s turn

In Latin America, it is customary for governments to alternate between “right-wing” pro-American populists and “left-wing” anti-American populists. Last year, Bolsonaro was replaced by Lula in Brazil; now Argentina, with the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction, ousted the left-wing peronista government and elected right-wing populist Javier Milei. The conventional wisdom is that the rightists…

Is the Pope Catholic?

Is the Pope Catholic? For a long time, this was a rhetorical question, similar to the question about where do bears relieve themselves. But as of late, it has become an actual question, with no clear answer, or maybe a negative answer. Something very strange is happening in the heart of the Catholic Church. I…

The Snow Queen, with 32 classic illustrations

Just in time for Christmas, we have created a new version of Hans Andersen’s Story “The Snow Queen”. Yes, you read it right, it’s not “The Drag Queen”, to keep up with modern times, it’s the original “The Snow Queen”, Andersen’s immortal beloved classic. You can buy it now at a cheaper price in our…

The future of “AI Art”

The other day I started playing with one of those new “AI art” tools. Bing’s one is the most popular, I suppose, but it’s also the most heavily censored. So I tried to play a bit around the politically correct filters. It was no surprise that all kinds of ethnic or religious descriptions were forbidden….

Future of the past

In George Orwell’s classic novel “1984”, the records of past history are constantly being modified by workers at the Ministry of Truth. As a Party member observes: “He who controls the past, controls the present. He who controls the present, controls the future.” Orwell had been, of course, inspired by Soviet communism, where Stalin would…

Three new books

We have published three new books by our imprint Contrarium. The first one is a bilingual Spanish-English edition of a selection of Horacio Quiroga’s short stories. Quiroga was a South American master of the short story genre. Many of the stories presented here are translated into English for the first time. Others are classics but…