Slow Elephants of Milan

Description

“Revelatory and seductive.”–Publishers Weekly, starred review

Enigmatic fictions from a lost master of Argentine literature.

A man and woman on a road trip make an unplanned detour to Laar, an empty city of palaces and canals that may be no city at all. Two gaucho rebels are captured during war–one finds freedom in writing stories while the other is driven mad with envy. And a traveler in postwar Italy is inspired, almost against his will, to record the mysterious progress of two elephants through the foggy streets of Milan.

In twelve short fictions threaded together by an insatiable curiosity about time, memory, art, and the divine, Ángel Bonomini (The Novices of Lerna) explores “the sweet and subtle interrelations of things.” Originally published in 1978 and appearing in English for the first time, Slow Elephants of Milan is an indispensable addition to our literature of the strange and fantastic.

Binding Type: Paperback
Contributors: Ángel Bonomini,Jordan Landsman (Translator)
Published: 08/11/2026
Publisher: Transit Books
ISBN: 9798893380484
Pages: 152
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 0.60″ H x 7.80″ L x 5.20″ W

About the Author
Ángel Bonomini (1929-1994) is one of the great previously untranslated writers of Argentine fiction, a contemporary of Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Silvina Ocampo, and Julio Cortázar. His debut collection, The Novices of Lerna, was originally published in 1972, but Bonomini’s meditations on identity, surveillance, and isolation remain eerily prescient. In his lifetime, Bonomini was a two-time recipient of the prestigious Premio Konex.

Jordan Landsman was born in New York City. After graduating from Binghamton University, he spent several years living in Buenos Aires, where he cocreated the BA Comedy Lab and taught literary workshops at Walrus Books. Ángel Bonomini’s The Novices of Lerna was his first translation.