I've been fortunate with opportunities to travel the world, counting Mexico, France, Sweden and Spain as my home at one time or other. In the past, a good part of my life was dedicated to business ventures: an art gallery, an advertising agency and commodity trading, among others.
My travels have taken me to faraway places and amazing situations. I arrived in Mongolia just as the revolution for independence from the USSR started. I have been taken up the Sepik river by crocodile hunters in Papua Guinea. I've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya, gone horseback riding to where the Río Magdalena in Colombia begins, crossed the Australian desert, hiked the Inka trail the wrong direction in Peru, and much more. However, the experience with the most impact that I've lived through was to be arbitrarily jailed in a centre for torture in Paraguay during the Stroessner dictatorship, under the absurd accusation of being a terrorist. (More about this in my illustrated non-fiction book in Spanish about the dictator, "El Reino del Terror".)
During the past two decades, I've been focused on artistic expressions – painting, photography, design and architecture, but mainly on writing. The sources for the things I'm interested in writing about are the passions of people; places and customs that I've experienced around the world; and stories or situations from life that intrigue me.
Eight short stories that has greed and wishful thinking in common …
The Gift of a Golden Wish; USA/The world, in the 1930s
Wouldn't you too be game if you received the unexpected gift of getting everything you desired? Then again, what if this delightful gift turns out to be a challenge too great to handle? This is a dream about attaining everything imaginable.
The Puppeteer; The World, 2023 – 2028
Making the world a better place may look easy if you are the richest man in history. But even the richest man can be trapped by human greed and become the victim of his own device.
Mad Captain Boccaccio and the Ship in the Desert; The Middle East, in the eighteenth century
Extra! Extra! Rumours of a ship stranded in a desert are flying, and men come from all over the world to confirm their versions of an elusive story. After a telling night of speculation the truth unexpectedly dawns on the participants. This is a satire about how news is handled by the media.
Bargaining Chips; Spain – Papua New Guinea; 1932
What can a man do when he covets something beyond his reach? His last resort is to trade the jewel among his possessions – his wife. A story that exposes the simultaneous bargaining going on in two distinct societies which, despite all, are not that different when it comes to getting what you want.
The Prospects of a Secure Investment; The United States, 1993-1995
Small fry and big fish – it's all a matter of size and confidence in a game where the participants play only for their own advantage. A con man is trapped by his own device, as the victim he wants to set up is in fact manipulating him. When things turn in his favour, he suddenly perceives an opportunity resulting from his previous misfortune – both for riches and revenge.
The Grapes of Greed; France; 1999
A widowed watchmaker reaching his retirement age decides to use his lifetime savings to purchase a vineyard, with the aspiration of becoming a renowned winemaker. Yet he is tempted to reap the fruits of his investment quickly, rather than using his head for some sobering thoughts about why everything is handed to him on a platter.
Greener Grass; Switzerland/Panama, 1992
A Swiss bank clerk decides his safe world is too suffocating for his own good and envisions greener pasture somewhere else. He eventually finds it at the end of the world, but not the way he had imagined. Money isn't everything, but it's what a lot of people set their sights on in life. Bank transactions are at the heart of this story.
In the Eyes of Blind Love; Central Asia, more than a thousand years ago
Those in love only see what they want to see, and their hearts obscure the rest. They become the game of their own desire and their passion challenges their reason. A tale out of an ancient Arabian storybook, where the storytelling moves a heart of stone to see that there is more to love than meets the eye.
Título : Tales of Greed & Wishful Thinking
EAN : 9780463735930
Editorial : Kim Ekemar
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