Dialogue with a Somnambulist

"At once fabular and formally innovative, Chloe Aridjis's stories and essays transport readers into liminal, often dreamlike realms. Guided only by a plastic bag drifting through the streets of Berlin, a woman discovers a nonsense-named bar that's home to papier-mâché monsters and one glass-encased somnambulist. Floating through space, cosmonauts are confronted not only with wonder and astonishment, but tedium and solitude. And in Mexico City, stray dogs animate public spaces. In her pen portraits, Aridjis turns her eye to expats and outsiders, including artists and writers such as Leonora Carrington, Mavis Gallant, and Beatrice Hastings"--