Electric Literature No. 4

Our fourth anthology celebrates the transportive joy of entering a vividly imagined world. Celebrated Spanish author Javier Marías spins a tale of a mild-mannered teacher turned ghost-hunter. Mexican writer Roberto Ransom (translated here into English for the first time) introduces us to a master fresco painter and the conservationist who tries to recapture his magic hundreds of years later, with mystifying results. Pulitzer Prize-nominee Joy Williams pens a fable about Baba Iaga and her pelican child, kept safe in a hut on chicken legs, until a mysterious historical figure asks to paint her portrait. Ben Stroud tells the harrowing story of a destitute cripple sent by his emperor to destroy a holy man and preserve the kingdom, and Patrick deWitt chronicles the deviant adventures of a man known only as “the Bastard."