I'm back with another intriguing and evocative short story collection. This one introduced me to Bolivian author Magela Baudoin, published in English for the first time. I was looking for that mildly unsettling feeling, the sense that something isn't quite right or could go wrong at any time. And Sleeping Dragons delivered! Thanks to Timothy Schaffner and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the delay!

What I loved most about the stories in Sleeping Dragons is, as I mentioned above, that unsettling unsurety, the uncanny feeling that something isn't right, that everything could wrong in a moment, that violence is looming. And despite this, none of these stories have great shock value. They are deeply human stories, full of the tragedy and joy that is a human life. No story perhaps summarises that better than 'A Buenos Aires Summer Sonata' in which human connection occasionally gets interrupted by cockroaches emerging from every nook and cranny. Light and dark, joy and sadness, it's all a part of a human life. As one of her characters in this story says 'it's inevitable, you have to live with the ugly side of life.' Considering that this story collection willingly looks at that ugly side, it nonetheless also holds a lot of beauty and fascination.

As with most collections, not every story hits home equally. However, I must say that each story in Sleeping Dragons ended up intriguing me in their own specific way. Take the story 'Moeba', in which a female journalist enters a prison looking for a story and finds something very different. Has her life changed now, or are some things inevitable? Can release be found in a prison, or is it just a delay of execution? Do her experiences make her a better person or no? This was one of my favourite stories in the collection. 'The Red Ribbon' features another journalist, recounting a murder-case she has just written about. Narrated by her sister, who has had her own share of troubles and knows her sister deeply, we come to see that even in writing a story you may lose power. There is a cost to her job and Baudoin shows us that cost. Very different in nature are stories like 'Love at First Sight' in which a woman is sucked into the orbit of her girlfriend's chronically disorganised life. Is there still love there? Is it inevitable that they'll move in together, buy a house together, grow old together, or do they have a choice in these matters? Perhaps the most shocking story in the collection is 'Mengele in Love'. Maria works at a beautiful hotel as a cleaner, and her manager has just kissed her. Initially her thoughts on this seem kind of romantic, as if it is a secret love affair. In her thoughts she speaks to Arami, a friend from her younger years, who, like Maria, also fell under the charm of a German doctor. From there, as the title suggests, it gets worse. By the end, the reader has a completely different understanding of Maria, but also of her current situation. I found this a quietly powerful story about trauma and abuse, about lingering trauma specifically that we try to deny. Sleeping Dragons is a collection that holds all kinds of stories, about all kinds of people, all of whom are on the bring of something, a memory, an event, a break-down, a departure.

This was my first introduction to Magela Baudoin's writing and I do also think Sleeping Dragons may be my first foray into Bolivian literature. There is something about Baudoin's writing style which feels very conversational. Even when she covers difficult topics, it almost feels like you're sitting down for a chat with a friend. Not that it feels gossip-y, but there is something intimate and guileless about the prose that belies its complexity. As I said above, despite the heavy topics she describes Baudoin never sets out to shock or scandalise. She wants to create an empathy, perhaps, a connection between these people and her readers, and through her style she is able to create that connection. In his introduction, Alberto Manguel calls it 'tje most apparent frakness', which allows readers to 'sense behind her words a dark retincence, unconfessed motives and secret reasons, people and places whose name Baudoin would rather not remember'. The openness in the prose belies the conflicts and difficultness at the heart of these stories. Each one leaves you with the knowledge that there is much more, that the fight that was averted will happen tomorrow, that the friendship forged now may not last, that the desperate flight for freedom may just end in another gilded cage. This doesn't make Sleeping Dragons sound very cheerful, perhaps, but hopefully it does impress how this collection is important.

The stories in Sleeping Dragons each took hold of me in a different way. The candor of the writing belies the complexity of the stories being told, each of which is deeply human in its darkness and light.

Sleeping Dragons is a collection of short stories that very quickly and directly dig into different South American cultural situations. From experiencing the highs and lows from a short stint of life in the slums of Buenos Aires to the rape and murder of a young indigenous refugee. Amazingly these stories pack a whole lot of detail to grasp you attention, and leads you to unexpected places in a very short amount of time...a literary rollercoaster. Thank you Netgallery for the opportunity to read & review an advanced reading copy of Sleeping Dragons in exchange for my honest review.

The stories in this book are engaging. Shart one, and you won't want to put it down until you reach its end. The author creates an ecclectic mix of characters, opening their lives to readers.