Eastern Freezer

The title of this anthology of stories by Mireya Robles Eastern Freezer is that of the first story in the book which sets the tone for the entire collection. It concerns life in a world where feelings have disappeared and emotional communication between human beings has been abolished. The themes of uprooting and alienation are familiar in Robles's work and here they find a poetic expression in stories with a variety of settings such as The Parade in which a lonely man in a city apartment hallucinates about a procession of robot-like creatures from the past or The Floating City possibly set in a Cuba of oneiric quality at the end of which the protagonist like an automaton follows incomprehensible orders. In most of these tales the heroes remember a former richer life and suffer at the loss of feeling the meaninglessness and the absurdity of the present. Occasionally one of Robles's characters finds fulfillment generally a child who discovers the world and once a lover who symbolically finds her corresponding half. These stories of Mireya Robles are cry of pain against a dreary and indifferent world and a plea for human warmth.<p> Anna Diegel<br> Translator and Literary Critic