Ghosts

Ghosts is a remarkable short novel by cult Argentinean author Cesar Aira.

"On a building site of a new, luxury apartment building, visitors looked up at the strange, irregular form of the water tank that crowned the edifice, and the big parabolic dish that would supply television images to all the floors. On the edge of the dish, a sharp metallic edge on which no bird would have dared to perch, three completely naked men were sitting, with their faces turend up to the midday sun; no one saw them, of course."

Ghosts revolves around an immigrant worker's family squatting on the haunted construction site on a luxury condominium building. All the workmen and their wives and children see the ghosts, who literally hang around the place, but one teenage girl becomes the most curious. Her questions about the ghosts get so intense that her mother -- in a chilling split-second -- realizes her daughter's life hangs in the balance.

Praise for Cesar Aira:

'Once you've started reading Aira, you don't want to stop' Roberto Bolaño

'Aira is firmly in the tradition of Jorge Luis Borges and W. G. Sebald' Los Angeles Times

Cesar Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. One of the most prolific writers in Argentina, Aira has published more than seventy books.