Alfredo Bryce Echenique is one of the most widely-read and most widely translated Latin American authors of recent decades, yet this is the first critical edition that makes his work available to students of Hispanic literatures in the English-speaking world. Combining humor and informal language to explore adolescence in middle-class Peru, this edition provides ready points of engagement for young (and not-so-young) adults. The stories and main themes are explained and analyzed through a critical introduction, comprehensive notes and vocabulary prepared by one of the leading international scholars of the author's work.