The Ballad of the Sad Café
Carson McCullers (Estate)Pub date 31st January 1951
Original publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US)
Publisher (UK) Penguin
International publishers Editions Stock (France), Diogenes (Germany), Dioptra (Greece), Am Oved (Israel), Einaudi (Italy), Yolimwon (Korea), Athenaeum (The Netherlands), Aschehoug (Norway), Polirom (Romania), Seix Barral (Spain), Pasazaite Liburuak (Spain – Basque), L’Altra Editorial (Spain – Catalan), Norstedts (Sweden)
Miss Amelia Evans, tall, strong and nobody’s fool, runs a small-town store. Except for a disastrous marriage that lasted just ten days, she has always lived alone. Then Cousin Lymon appears from nowhere, a strutting hunchback who steals Miss Amelia’s heart. Together they transform the store into a lively, popular café where the locals come to drink and gossip. But when her rejected and dangerous ex-husband Marvin Macy returns, the result is a bizarre love triangle that brings with it violence, hatred and betrayal.
Among other fine works, the collection also includes Wunderkind, McCullers’ first published story written when she was only seventeen, about a musical prodigy who suddenly realises she will not go on to become a great pianist.
