Julio Cortázar | Lecturia

Julio Cortázar: Circe

“Circe” is a short story by Julio Cortázar, published in 1951 as part of the Bestiario collection. Dark rumors surround Delia Mañara, a young woman marked by the tragic deaths of her two former boyfriends. Mario, a neighbor in the neighborhood, decides to defend her from the gossip and begins to visit her, gradually entering the secretive world of the Mañaras. There, Delia attracts him with her unique culinary skills and domestic rituals, while the young man tries to unravel the enigma of a woman who seems to exert a disturbing influence on everything around her.

Julio Cortázar: A Yellow Flower

“A Yellow Flower” is a short story by Julio Cortázar, published in 1956 in the collection Final del juego. In a Paris bistro, a drunken man claims to have made an extraordinary discovery: we are immortal. As he tells it, the revelation came to him on a bus, when he recognized in a thirteen-year-old boy named Luc an exact replica of himself at that age—the same face, the same gestures, the same shyness, the same voice. Determined to investigate, he insinuates himself into the boy’s life: he visits his home and meets his family. As he learns more about Luc’s story, he finds astonishing parallels between their two lives, as though existence were repeating itself in endless cycles.

Julio Cortázar: The Other Heaven

“The Other Heaven” (El otro cielo) is a short story by Julio Cortázar, published in 1966 in the collection All Fires the Fire (Todos los fuegos el fuego). It tells the story of a man divided between his routine life in 1940s Buenos Aires and an imaginary, twilight Paris made of covered passages and gaslight. While he fulfills the obligations of the present (work, family, stability), Josiane awaits him in that other world—an enigmatic woman with whom he shares a freer, more secret existence, whose intensity threatens to eclipse everything that binds him to his real life.

Julio Cortázar: The Other Heaven. Summary and Analysis

“The Other Heaven,” a short story by Julio Cortázar, tells the life of a man divided between his reality in 1940s Buenos Aires and a fantastic world set in late-nineteenth-century Paris. While in Buenos Aires he leads a routine life as a stockbroker, trapped in a conventional relationship with his fiancée Irma, in his imagination he travels to a bohemian and decadent Paris where he maintains an affair with Josiane, a prostitute, under the constant threat of a murderer named Laurent. Through this contrast between the real and the imaginary, the protagonist seeks to escape monotony but discovers that both worlds are filled with frustration and danger.

Julio Cortázar: The Son of the Vampire. Summary and Analysis

One night, the vampire Duggu Van rises from his grave and enters the castle where Lady Vanda sleeps. Attracted by her beauty, he falls in love with her instead of feeding on her, and he possesses her. Shortly after, Lady Vanda becomes ill and discovers that she is pregnant. Confined within the castle, she is cared for by the nurse Miss Wilkinson, while her body steadily weakens. The doctors find no explanation. The child she carries grows in an abnormal way, absorbing her blood and transforming her. On the night of the birth, Lady Vanda’s body changes completely: her skin darkens, her sex transforms, and from her emerges a male being—the son of Duggu Van. At midnight, Duggu Van arrives, takes the hands of his son, and together they leave through the window, leaving behind the doctors and the nurse, unable to comprehend what has just happened.

Julio Cortázar: Axolotl

Axolotl is a short story by Julio Cortázar, published in 1956 in the Final del juego (End of the Game) collection. It tells the story of a man’s obsession with axolotls —amphibians native to Mexico also known as ajolotes— that he observes daily in an aquarium in Paris. Fascinated by their stillness and their eyes, the protagonist feels a deep connection with these creatures, perceiving in them a mysterious presence and a latent humanity.