Marquez's style (unlike Borges, who has been influenced by writers as diverse as Poe, Stevenson and Carlyle) is perhaps more what the European would expect from Latin America: earthy, sprawling, often ludicrously hyperbolic. And, again unlike Borges' refined economical tone, one suspects it translates badly. Certainly the punctuation in [Innocent Eréndira] is wayward and Marquez's vocabulary is obsessive: favourite words—'arid', 'radiant', 'torpor'—appear again and again.

The three most recent stories (1972, 1970 and 1961) are undeniably the best. The other nine (all written between 1947 and 1953) are repetitive, overly-symbolic tales of the fantastical folk-myth variety. Marquez's development, as illustrated here anyway, is to be applauded. Since the early stories he has acquired a sense of humour, discovered dialogue and now roots his narratives in a more convincingly realised landscape. The long title story 'The Incredible Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and her Heartless Grandmother' is the outstanding one of...