Modern Firsts – Part 2 – South American and other foreign writers

My book collection is quite eclectic as you no doubt have realised by now. Below are more first edition hard covers from a variety of writers.

Quite few of them were given to me as gifts and others I purchased at the time they were published or I found them on the remaindered books table of a discount bookstore.

Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende I remember purchasing after a successful gamble on a race horse. A long shot winner gained me a windfall of $100.00. I celebrated by buying this book- her third novel published in 1985. I also have somewhere a proof copy of Stories of Eva Luna.

Keeping to South American authors The General in his Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez I acquired as a Christmas present in 1990. That year I had to perform the function of present buyer for my mother who was unwell so bought the book for myself as a present from her.

I acquired The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa sometime or other from my friend in the book trade who was at that time the Australian representative for Faber and gave me many interesting books, in hard cover, paperback or proof copy. I can’t remember if I ever read The Storyteller, but it certainly has a great cover.

Other books from this source are the wonderful The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, News From a Foreign Country Came by Alberto Manguel, Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi