The Shadow of the Mammoth is the latest of Fabio Morábito’s work to be translated into English, and his second collection of short prose. In it, he brings together eighteen short stories, anecdotes, essays, and fables; though the genres vary, all are thought experiments driven by unusual premises, with unexpected outcomes. A labyrinthine fun house, the collection is altogether firmly in the tradition of Jorge Luis Borges,.

Of the stories, “The Landing on the Moon” is among the most compelling. It is 1969, and a family has gathered to watch Neil Armstrong emerge from Apollo 11 and take his first steps on the moon. As they wait, one by one they fall asleep until the youngest member of the family, a boy, is the only one left awake. His abuela sits behind him, dozing and near death. Out of nowhere, she prompts him to take money from his uncle’s wallet and put half into his pocket to give to her later. When he resists, she twists the situation by asking, “Do you want me to die right now?” The boy is trapped. He can either kill his abuela or steal from his uncle. He pockets the money. She presses on, having him steal money from other family members. The boy complies despite knowing there will be consequences. At last, the lunar module opens and Armstrong steps out. The family drama comes to its close against humans’ greatest triumph.

Another substantial offering, “Daedelus Under Berlin” is a richly drawn mental labyrinth that is also a story of jealousy and paranoia. Set at the end of the Cold War in Berlin, the story involves tunneling beneath the Berlin Wall as subversives from East and West attempt to create a means of escape. The authorities fight back with a rumor: A large subterranean labyrinth is being created under East Berlin that is intended to prevent people from escaping to the West. The idea is that anyone attempting to escape to the other side of the Wall through a tunnel will at some point run into this cramped network of galleries and become trapped. Just who controls the narrative is one key question, and here, it is ironic because the tunnelers rely on silence. One of the masons working in the tunnels suspects his wife is seeing a Russian digger from his crew. The Russian has a girlfriend who works in the Soviet embassy and is privy to state secrets of all kinds. In a double-twist at the end, everything turns to noise just as the mason is set to renew his undying love to his wife.

Morábito finds many Borgesian possibilities in tunnels and passageways. In his fable-esque “The Great Floating Road,” the emperor of China wants a road that will allow him to go out in his carriage without having to see the people and poverty in his land. The master builders create a “great floating road” that soars through the mountains, through tunnels and over bridges, and ever skyward. Due to the cost of building, the road is unidirectional, crafted to the exact width of his carriage. The king and his entourage ride out for a day and encounter a ram and a shepherd on the road. The day is warm, and warmer. They can barely move. The entourage slowly succumbs to the heat, or perhaps it is the arrows that the king’s own archers have released that has left them bloody and slumped. In other words, an insurrection is afoot. The horses have managed to turn toward the castle, leaving the king with little to do but choose which bridge he will leap from.

Figurative passages between languages also fall within Morábito’s circle of narrative concern. Several of the stories star writers and/or translators, typically spinning stories of self-doubt, insecurity, and jealousy. “Time To Take Out The Trash” features a literal passageway—a garbage chute shared by two fourth-floor apartments—as well as a figurative one, in that the man in one apartment discovers that the woman in the other speaks a language he needs to learn. He seeks lessons. He becomes infatuated. Mayhem ensues.

Some stories are slight. Imagine a musician, a maestro, who, in concerts, plays a single note on his piccolo. Wives, lovers, and jealousy dominate, but the twist involves the question: What if he plays that note poorly? In another story, a husband who seems desperate to maintain a marital argument argues that the nail holding a painting to the wall is as much or more aesthetically pleasing than the painting itself. In “Extras,” a movie extra directs a faux-documentary entitled Extras and, in an ironic twist, consequently loses his membership in the the California Association of Film Extras and Figurants.

Most of the answers to the ‘what ifs’ in the collection explore the nature of connections humans can make. The conflicts, such as they are, are merely occasions for emphasizing what we have in common. This is everywhere evident in the titular story of the collection, in which a contemporary man lives seven stories above the ground in a glass building. He has a fine view of his fitness center and its outdoor track across the street. He begins running with a blind boy, assisting him as they round the oval track. A shadow begins to emerge at a point on a turn, growing with each lap, until a shadow of a mammoth is clear, at least for the sighted. The moral of the story, or the collection? Perhaps little more than we’re looking in the wrong places for such things as morals. Seeing connections is quite enough.

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Fabio Morábito is an award-winning and prolific writer of novels, short stories, essays, and poetry. Among his awards are the Premio Nacional de Poesía Aguascalientes, the Premio Antonin Artaud, and the prestigious Premio Xavier Villaurrutia. In addition to his creative work, he has translated a considerable amount of literary work from Italian to Spanish. He has spent most of his life in Mexico City, where he teaches at the Autonomous University of Mexico. The Shadow of the Mammoth is his third book published by Other Press.

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Curtis Bauer is a professor of English at Texas Tech University, where he directs the creative writing program. His publications are wide and varied, from three collections of his own poetry to translations from the Spanish of poetry and prose by Clara Muschietti,  María Sánchez, Jeannette L. Clariond, Luis Muñoz, and Juan Antonio González Iglesias. He has been translating Morábito’s work for nearly ten years.

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Among Rick Henry’s recently completed projects is a collection of fifty-five consensual novellas. He lives on the northernmost edge of the Adirondack Mountains, but can be found at www.rickhenry.net.