Untranslated Lit: El Reino de Este Mundo (The Kingdom of This World)

El Reino de Este Mundo (1949) is a novel by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier.

Untranslated Lit: La Tía Julia y el Escribidor (Aunt Julia & the Scriptwriter)

La tía Julia y el escribidor (1977) is a novel by the celebrated Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. The main narrative is about the love affair between the protagonist, Mario Vargas, and a Bolivian friend of the family, Aunt Julia. Mario is only 18, he works at a local radio station in Lima scripting the hourly news bulletins. He is also a halfhearted law student but he dreams of becoming a literary writer. Aunt Julia is a divorcee in her mid 30s. This central part of the novel is somehow autobiographical. Apart from the love affair, there is the famous Bolivian writer of radio soap operas, Pedro Camacho, who in spite of working almost non-stop on his writing, strikes a friendship with Mario.
This main narrative is interrupted by chapters which loosely connected plots could well be lifted from Pedro Camacho's soaps but, actually, are a great show of Vargas Llosa's skills as a short-story writer. This is a novel full of humour but also passion and intrigue, as any good soap opera.

Untranslated Lit: Historia Universal de la Infamia

Historia Universal de la Infamia (1935) is a collection of short-stories by Jorge Luis Borges. The settings range for North to South America, from Persia to the Far East. This is a book about men, adventures in exotic locations, things that could have had happened in history but most probably only did in Borges' rich imagination. This book is probably easier to read than The Aleph or Ficciones, nontheless it is just as imaginative and literary worthy.

Untranslated Lit: Ficciones

Ficciones (1944) is a superb collection of short-stories by Jorge Luis Borges. I would personally highlight Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote; La Muerte y la brújula; and El Sur.

Untranslated Lit: El Aleph (The Aleph)

El Aleph (1949) is a collection of short stories by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The stories are poetical, metaphysical, deep. My favourite ones are Deutsches Requiem, La Espera (The Wait) and El Aleph (The Aleph).