"Barba is a master of the novella . . .A gorgeous, fully realized collection."— Nothing is simple for the men and women in Andrés Barba's stories. As they go about their lives, they are each tested by a single, destructive obsession. A runner puts his marriage at risk while training for a marathon; a teenager can no longer stand the sight of meat following her parents' divorce; a man suddenly fixates on the age difference between him and his younger male lover. In four tightly wound novellas, Andrés Barba establishes himself as a master of the form. is the one the most lauded contemporary Spanish writers. He is the author of twelve books, including and . In addition to literary fiction, he has written essays, poems, books of photography, and translations of Thomas De Quincey and Herman Melville. His books have been translated into ten languages. won the 2016 Best Translated Book Award for her translation of Yuri Herrera's . She translates from Spanish and Catalan and teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Emory University.