Considering the political content of several of the twenty-six short stories and of the last segment of the novel included in [Strange Things Happen Here], the present regime of Argentina would appear to be less repressive than Luisa Valenzuela … herself represents it….

The obscurity of the novel [He Who Searches] cannot be attributed to the translation but rather to a style reminiscent of Carlos Fuentes' Where the Air is Clear or García Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude. Her writing also bears comparison to that of Kurt Vonnegut and Günther Grass. Vonnegut does not have the thick social protest that pervades the work of Valenzuela, but they are alike in the shifting points of view and the blunt, scatological language.

Three themes are found in the majority of the stories. Fifteen concern political repression and, closely linked to this, the poverty of the Latin-American populace. Each...