From the hand of Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garca Mrquez comes Strange Pilgrims, a collection comprised of a dozen stories (written over an eighteen-year period) that chronicle the expatriate experiences of Latin Americans transplanted in Europe. The stories in this collection convey both the sorrow and aspiration that is the embodiment of these Latin American pilgrims and their expatriate experiences. From I Only Came to Use the Phone which shows a woman accidentally admitted to an insane asylum only to discover that she cannot secure her release even after contacting her husband to Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane in which, the author speaks of a cherished memory of a beautiful, mysterious young woman seated next to him on the plane who sleeps through the entire flight eliminating the possibility of polite conversation, leaving the author with only the simple pleasure of watching her sleep.
In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortunetelling position with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-President of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact. In these twelve masterly stories about the lives of Latin Americans in Europe, Garc a M rquez conveys the peculiar amalgam of melancholy, tenacity, sorrow, and aspiration that is the migr experience.