Three Huge Novels

In 1931, while on holiday in Arcachon, Huidobro and the Franco-German artist and writer, Hans (Jean) Arp together wrote Tres novelas exemplares (Three Exemplary Novels — no doubt a reference to the Exemplary Novels by Cervantes, to which of course they bear no resemblance at all), a set of wild quasi-surrealist "stories". In 1932, Huidobro offered the set to a publisher in Barcelona, but was told that the book was too short. Accordingly he wrote two further stories on his own, and the whole volume was then titled Tres inmensas novelas. Which are therefore, not three, not huge and also not novels. Nothing came of a publication in Spain at that stage, and the book was to appear in 1935 Santiago, Huidobro by then having returned to his homeland. This volume offers all five stories in a bilingual format, and the cover is almost a copy of the one used in the first edition.