She had lived by delays; she had meant to stop drinking; she had put off the time, and now she had smashed her car.At once harsh and tender, expansive and acutely funny, this is the story of an elderly...

'If I think about it, and I have the time and inclination and capacity to do so, we dogs are an odd lot.'How does a dog see the world? How do any of us? In this playful and enigmatic story of a canine...

'I have lived in important places, timesWhen great events were decided . . .'By turns comical, grouchy and exalted, and including his tragic masterpiece 'The Great Hunger', some of the key poems by the...

'It was what we call in the trade a potato...' Tales of low-lifes and grifters trying to make ends meet in pre-War Germany. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic...

'Though their house was new, the wall had been there a long time.'In these two stories, which have never before been translated into English, Tsushima shows how memories, dreams and fleeting images describe...

'If he only knew what it was, he would fix it; he would kill this mean thing that made Mama feel so bad.' Belonging and estrangement intertwine in these four lyrical short stories from the the author...

'What use to a being that lives beneath a sun are jewels of gas and silver stars of ice?'From a giant of twentieth-century science fiction, these four miniature space epics feature crazy inventors, surreal...

My heartbrims with billowsand minnowsof shadows and silverBeautiful, brutal, strange and lovely: this is Lorca reborn, in a selection of previously unpublished pieces and masterful new translations. Penguin...

'INTENSE SEXUAL DESIRE IS THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD'A tale of art, sex, blood, junkies and whores in New York's underground, from cult literary icon Kathy AckerPenguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating...

'He felt a sudden deep pity for the finger joint that lay there on the dresser, a few drops of blood gathering around the white bone.'A deliberately severed finger, a junky's Christmas miracle and a Tangier...

'Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!-and you, García Lorca, what were you doing by the watermelons?'Profane and prophetic verses about sex, death, revolution and America by the great icon of...

' "Another hour gone. But I'm not afraid. There's only one thing I regret: that I've lived for so many years without knowing where human happiness is to be found" 'In these stories, four writers - all...

'The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs'Biting and timeless reflections on patriotism, prejudice and power, from the man who wrote about his...

Dispatch the maimed, the old, the weak, destroy the very world itself, for what is the point of life if the promise of fulfilment lies elsewhere?On the windswept coast of rural Suffolk, a deranged scientist...

'But no, she's abstract, is a birdOf sound in the air of air soaring,And her soul sings unencumberedBecause the song's what makes her sing.'Dramatic, lyrical and ranging over four distinct personae, these...

'Back, away from here, drowned people, go. I haven't stolen anyone's place' A selection of poetry from the author of If this is a Man and The Periodic Table.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating...

'The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful.'These two classic essays were the first works of criticism to break down the boundaries between 'high' and 'low' culture, and made Susan Sontag...

'She was bored and fought against her boredom, which only bored her still more.'Five sparkling, irreverent brief portraits of famous literary figures (including libertines, eccentrics and rogues) from...

'Do I wish to keep up with the times? No. My wish simply is to live my life as fully as I can'The great American poet, novelist and environmental activist argues for a life lived slowly.Penguin Modern:...

' "Of course, no one would want to say anything about a girl like this that's missing..." 'Malice, paranoia and creeping dread lie beneath the surface of ordinary American life in these chilling miniature...

'Good b.o means good "box office." You can smell it from a mile away'The legendary sixties New York pop artist Andy Warhol's hilarious and insightful vignettes and aphorisms on the topics of love, fame...

'For once there had been false idols and asses' heads drawn on the walls...' Sleepers awake in a remote cave and the ancient mystic Simon Magus attempts a miracle, in these two magical, otherworldly tales...

From the self-described 'black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet', these soaring, urgent essays on the power of women, poetry and anger are filled with darkness and light. Penguin Modern: fifty new books...

'Ring for your maid, and when she comes in we'll pounce upon her and tear off her face. I'll wear her face tonight instead of mine.'These dreamlike, carnivalesque fables by one of the leading lights of...

A haunting novella of fame and disillusionment by a Japanese literary iconAll eyes are upon Rikio. And he likes it, mostly. His fans cheer from a roped-off section, screaming and yelling to attract...

'Like rotting stakes in a forest clearing' The great journalist of conflict in the Third World finds an even stranger and more exotic society in his own home of post-War PolandPenguin Modern: fifty new...

'Time is a catastrophe, perpetual and irreversible.' Science and fiction interweave delightfully in these playful Cosmicomic short stories. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit...

'The sap had dried up; the sap, the incentive, the fever, the desire to do, to act, to act the fool, make love, create'A middle-aged woman breaks with her handsome young lover; a placid husband is suspected...

'So the club rose, the blood came down, and his bitterness and his anguish and his guilt were compounded.'Drawing on Baldwin's own experiences of prejudice in an America violently divided by race, these...

'"Forget all your fears now. Have a fling this night"'Untrustworthy, charming Fussy Joe spins stories and breaks hearts in this rollicking story set in the 'sensational city' of 1960s Lagos. Penguin Modern:...