Battles in the Desert and Other Stories - Paperback

Seven stories depict harsh realities of life in urban Mexico and the tragedies of childhood innocence betrayed.

Back Jacket

This book is a collection of short fiction that deals mainly with themes of childhood and innocence betrayed, is the first book of Pacheco's fiction to appear in English. Here there are no narrative arabesques, no flights of magical-realist fancy. Instead, he confronts the reader with the uglier sides of urban Mexico--its grime, its beggars, its suffocating pollution, the constricted lives of its lower middle class--all with a simplicity and directness of style impeccably shaped and clearly distilled.