“Who could foresee a series of nuanced and unsettling tales about memory, art, betrayal, and divinity from a volume that begins with a housebound Godzilla? In Daniel Shapiro’s superb translation . . . the stories set free at least as many wonders as they define.”

World Literature Today

"Shapiro has accomplished a very difficult task: he has created a clear, pellucid language in English for Ransom's stories, which are dark and tortuous. The contrast is devastating. The same tension between substance and style exists in Spanish, and Shapiro has been able to duplicate that with finesse, sophistication, and an excellent ear. His translations are a gift to English-speaking readers."

Edith Grossman, translator of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

"Roberto Ransom's collection of short stories, Missing Persons, Animals, and Artists, is a trip to fear, to the uncanny, to the limit where we give up our defenses and just relate."

Álvaro Enrigue, award winning novelist and short story writer

“In one of the stories in this surreal collection, an artist is unable to paint some figures in his composition because he’s waiting for the right color to inspire him. The painting’s patron doesn’t understand the delay:  Shouldn’t it be easy to paint some figures? Thus Roberto Ransom suggests with clarity and elegance that form is the subject of art. Daniel Shapiro’s translation perfectly captures all the nuances of these strange and seductive stories.”
 

Edmundo Paz Soldán, professor of Spanish literature at Cornell University