Hopscotch and Blow-Up

Mar 10, 2026 10:03 PM

Author:Julio Cortazar

With his "counter-novel" Hopscotch and his unforgettable short stories, Julio Cortázar earned a place among the most innovative authors of the twentieth century. Hopscotch follows the adventures of an Argentinean writer living in Paris with his lover and a circle of bohemian friends, and consists of 155 short chapters that the author advises us to read out of order. Blow-Up brings together the most famous of Cortázar's short fiction--stories where invisible beasts stalk children in their homes, where a man reading a mystery finds out that he is the murderer's intended victim. In Cortázar's work, laws of nature, physics, and narrative all fall away, leaving us with an astonishing new view of the world.

Reviews

Toni Morrison makes me believe in God. She makes me believe in a divine being, because luck and genetics don’t seem to come close to explaining her

—— Guardian

The poetry of the language. The vernacular and the rhythms of speech... It's eavesdropping on a slice of life. You care for every character. You love them, you bleed for them. It's a masterclass in narrative fiction. It's a book that not only makes me want to be a better writer, but a better person as well

—— Sarah Winman , Good Housekeeping

Stunningly beautiful... Full of magnificent people... They are still haunting my house. I suspect they will be with me forever

—— Anne Tyler , Washington Post

Song of Solomon…profoundly changed my life

—— Marlon James , Guardian

A rhapsodic work... Intricate and inventive

—— New Yorker

A complex, wonderfully alive and imaginative story...glittering

—— Daily Telegraph

Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon grips as a novel of extraordinary truth, wisdom and humour

—— Auberon Waugh , Evening Standard

The language of Morrison's third novel astounds from its first pages to its triumphant conclusion... an epic of the African-American experience

—— Abdulrazak Gurnah , Week

Toni Morrison has written a brilliant prose tale that surveys nearly a century of American history as it impinges on a single family

—— New York Times Book Review

Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon grips as a novel of extraordinary truth, wisdom and humour

—— Sunday Telegraph

A stunning novel that's steeped in black history

—— Marc Chacksfield , ShortList

A mind-blowing political statement, an anguished cry of despair . . . a bomshell

—— The Weekly Review

The definitive African book of the twentieth century.

—— Moses Isegawa, author of Abyssinian Chronicles and Snakepit

Previous Article：Hancock’s Half Hour: Complete Series One & Two Next Article：Postcards from the Past

Comments

Welcome to zzdbook comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.