Digital List Price:	$19.99
Kindle Price:	$2.99 Save $17.00 (85%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

Promotions apply when you purchase

Add an

audiobook with Audible narration for $12.99

Audiobook Price: $19.68

Save: $6.69 (34%)

Read with our free app

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the author

Ben Fountain

+ Follow

More books from this author

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories Kindle Edition

by Ben Fountain (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 523 ratings

See all formats and editions

Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award * A National Bestseller

“An exceptional story collection.” —New York Times Book Review

The well-intentioned protagonists of Brief Encounters with Che Guevera—including a disillusioned NGO worker, the wife of a special operations officer, and an obssessed ornithologist—are caught, to both disastrous and hilarious effect, in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them.

With masterful pacing and a robust sense of the absurd, each story is a self-contained adventure, steeped in the heady mix of tragedy and danger, excitement and hope, that characterizes countries in transition. An intelligent and keenly observed collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevera marks the arrival of a striking and resonant new voice that speaks adeptly to the intimate connection between the foreign, the familiar, and the inescapably human.

From the Publisher


	Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk	Beautiful Country Burn Again	Brief Encounters with Che Guevara

Customer Reviews	3,308	93	523
Price	$10.59	$17.99	$12.16

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Six of these eight debut short stories feature Americans abroad, on modified grand tours stopping in Colombia, Haiti, Myanmar and Sierra Leone. As aid workers, soldiers and hangers-on, they grapple with some of the darkest circumstances in the contemporary world, their struggles made absurd by the ease with which they can and do return home. A few are honorably conflicted, including the NGO worker who betrays her diamond-smuggling lover. Others, including an indolent golfer who sells his soul along with his game, and a writer nursing an obsession with Che Guevara, draw less sympathy. Fountain seems to see both travel and introspection as amoral indulgences, which means there's serious writerly self-hatred here, since those indulgences feed his tales. The stories that avoid moral writhings for postmodern fable are his most memorable. When a Haitian fisherman discovers a drug runners' drop-off and tries to alert the police, only to find them driving shiny new SUVs, he turns next to the village's voodoo revelers"who have better ideas about what to do with the dope. Lively work, with much to detest and much to enjoy. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Tales of Americans subsisting in the third world and discovering new ways to think and behave are commonplace. But Ben Fountain's lively, humorous treatment of his troubled characters earns generous praise. Instead of focusing his deft choices of words and inventive metaphors on a character's internal experience, the author uses his literary prowess to examine the uncomfortable complexities of life outside the United States. He also takes time to portray the "dunes of garbage so rich in colorful filth" on Haitian streets. That may be enough to prove, as the New York Times says, what a "heartbreaking, absurd, deftly drawn" collection this is.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000UVBT72
Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins e-books; 1st edition (October 13, 2009)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 13, 2009
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1678 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 239 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #279,129 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #321 in Political Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #637 in Read & Listen for $14.99 or Less
- #787 in Political Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 523 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Ben Fountain

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Ben Fountain's novel BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK received the National Book Critics' Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Award, the PEN/New England Cerulli Award for Excellence in Sports Writing, and the Jesse Jones Award for fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in both the US and the UK (international authors division). The film adaptation of BILLY LYNN, directed by three-time Oscar winner Ang Lee, was released in 2016 by Sony Pictures. Fountain's short story collection BRIEF ENCOUNTERS WITH CHE GUEVARA received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, and a Whiting Writers Award. Fountain's short fiction has appeared in Harper's, Zoetrope: All-Story, the Paris Review, Esquire, the Sewanee Review, DALLAS NOIR, and HAITI NOIR II, among other publications. His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Texas Monthly, and elsewhere, and his reportage on post-earthquake Haiti was broadcast on the radio show This American Life. Fountain grew up in the tobacco country of eastern North Carolina, and is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University Law School. A former attorney in private practice, he has lived in Dallas, Texas for over thirty years. In September, 2018, Ecco/HarperCollins will publish Fountain's nonfiction book BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY BURN AGAIN, which is based on his reportage for the Guardian of the US presidential campaign of 2016.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

523 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Real Name - Real Name

AS GOOD AS IT GETS!

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2024

Verified Purchase

I bought this book several years back and was immediately impressed by the first story I read. Wow! Powerful story telling and exquisite prose. Some of the best I have ever read. I expect Ben will eventually be included in academic anthologies and students will be reading him in school, if it hasn't happened already. 100 Stars!

Helpful

Global Prof

Brilliant, but with not entirely convincing points of view

Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2018

Verified Purchase

In the great spirit of Paul Theroux and Graham Greene, Ben Fountain takes us to little-visited parts of the world with this collection of stories, set in Haiti, Colombia, Sierra Leone and Myanmar. I was excited to read it, since I had enjoyed his novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, so much.

The good: fantastic descriptions. A crisp literary style with really, really clever phrases (see samples below). Depictions of countries that most people might not otherwise be exposed to.

The not-so-good: I had problems with a white American man describing life through the eyes of a poor Haitian fisherman, or a Viennese Jewish female child prodigy with eleven fingers. It just seemed too audacious, too presumptuous. In this age of #ownvoices, I really doubted the veracity of these voices. I kept feeling like I was reading a white guy trying to get into the head of various other people. Much more credible were his depictions of privileged white American males abroad (whether they were natural scientists or golf pros).

That said, consider the beauty of these brief excerpts:

"I suppose there's no point in withholding the fact that he was quite insane. He'd turn up several times a week, usually in the mornings for a cup of coffee; in his guayabera and slacks and white patent-leather loafers, carrying his zippered portfolio under one arm, he looked every inch the tropical man of affairs, but as soon as he opened his mouth you wanted to run for the doors."

"Throughout my thirties I kept going to Haiti, convinced that I'd found ground zero for all the stupidity, waste, and horror inflicted on the hemisphere since Columbus and the Spaniards set up shop."

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

ViennaMusings

Great book through and through

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2016

Verified Purchase

Ben Fountain is a talented wordsmith and brilliant storyteller. He once wrote that Americans need to go abroad to grow up - these tales show why. His stories from Haiti to Fort Bragg to Sierra Leone to Vienna (😃) are rich with detail and engaging plot lines. The tales are as lovely as they are disturbing and do not end at the close of the book but continue on in truth and consequence throughout the world today. Read the story about Wall Street and the FARC and google the sordid reality - specifically The Observer's Dec 12, 2009 article entitled "Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor." These stories will give ample fodder for engaging discussions for book clubs and student groups. The cost of the book will give you pleasurable hours of reading and the satisfaction of money well spent. Kudos Mr. Fountain for a wonderful read.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Luis A. Cifuentes

Great short stories

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2015

Verified Purchase

Picked it up while reading what the dog said as Gladwell mentions it in one of the chapters. Being from Colombia I was curious to read the first short story in the book. It was awesome. Totally funny, satirical and full of dark humor. Have not been able to get hooked on the rest of the short stories though.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Janet C. MacFarlane

An Elegant, Riveting Read

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2014

Verified Purchase

I cannot think of a thing I disliked & I did try.

The writing is so imaginative and believable. Really caught me up. I would love to meet the characters - they originated and no doubt returned to Ben Fountain's mind. Thus, I would very much enjoy meeting the author. This book is well worth reading twice - first as a re-introduction to story lines, places, and to listen again to the narrator, such a fascinating man I'd be glad to know him better. My mind would be in a dream of a story and another would so seamlessly make its appearance, before I knew it was there, I was curled up on the couch being transported into another place, meeting new people, I'd love to meet again... Fountain is a ringmaster of story telling. Find out for yourselves...

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Patrick Mc Coy

Exotic ficition

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2007

Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed Brief Encounters With Che Guevara by Ben Fountain. The stories take place in exotic locales like Haiti, Columbia, and Myanmar and they all have some sort of epiphany that enlightens the protagonists. Some stories are more compelling than other and Fountain knows more about Haiti, so that country has prominence in being the setting for three of the stories. My favorites were the opening story of the committed bird watcher, "Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera", the story of the opportunist golf pro, "Asian Tiger," and the collection's namesake: "Brief Encounters With Che Guevara." I look forward to more from Fountain. One note about the Harper Perennial edition-it had a really interesting section at the end called P.S., with interviews, essays and a selection of book reading suggestions from the author-I wish all books had these extras.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

RDS

In the spirit of O. Henry

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

I was very pleasantly surprised by the stories in this book. Fountain strikes me as a writer in the spirit of O. Henry, with an affectionate eye to his characters, even though they have their own foibles, and love of an ironic twist. The subject matter of several stories is serious, yet he projects a quality of humor, and even security, so that one never feels that the thread is overly intense.

Fountain's familarity with locales and cultures most of us in the North find exotic add another layer of richness to his writing and the characters he protrays, bringing back to me memories of my own forays into the developing world.

I tried to think of which of the eight stories is my favorite, but each had its own distinct flavor. He is definitely not a formulaic writer. It was worth the read for me, enough so that I am just now starting one of his novels.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Amazon Kunde

Spannende Kurzgeschichten

Reviewed in Germany on June 5, 2022

Verified Purchase

Sehr gut zu lesen. Jede Geschichte war interessant und gut zu lesen. Sie waren alle anders, aber bestimmte Themen waren immer wieder zu finden.

Translate review to English

Robert Valine

Great Short Stoties

Reviewed in Canada on July 21, 2017

Verified Purchase

Well written short stories. Great character development and scene description. Wish there were more...

Charles Denton

Small miracles of form

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 8, 2018

Verified Purchase

Ben Fountain writes like an angel, and anyone with doubts about the future of the novel can lay them to rest. Each of these stories has an inevitability of form, and a breathtaking exactitude of language in the service of emotional truth. Wonderful.

LD

De Vienne à Port-au-Prince (Nouvellistes américains contemporains 2)

Reviewed in France on May 14, 2012

Verified Purchase

Encore un écrivain américain de talent qui s'est essentiellement distingué dans la nouvelle, ce qui n'est jamais un curriculum vitae idéal lorsqu'on essaie de faire reconnaître un auteur en France. Cela risque toutefois de changer assez rapidement, la sortie de son premier roman aux Etats-Unis, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk , où il est d'ores et déjà salué comme "le Catch-22 de la Guerre en Irak", et sa traduction française fin 2012, risquant de changer cet état de fait.

Remercions une nouvelle fois la collection Terres d'Amérique chez Albin Michel, non seulement d'éditer souvent des (très) bons textes, mais aussi de ne pas avoir abandonné l'édition de recueils de nouvelles alors qu'ils se vendent très peu chez nous. Rappelons pour mémoire des recueils aussi excellents que The Dead Fish Museum / Le Musée des poissons morts de Charles d'Ambrosio, Among the Missing / Parmi les disparus de Dan Chaon (qui existe aussi en Livre de poche), The Pugilist at Rest / Le Pugiliste au repos de Thom Jones (également en 10/18). On peut également se reporter aux liens inclus dans mon commentaire sur Vintage America , qui comporte des nouvelles de très bons auteurs maison (Scott Wolven, Benjamin Percy, etc).

Le coup d'essai de Ben Fountain, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (2006) / Brèves rencontres avec Che Guevara est déjà un coup de maître. Il explique dans l'entretien livré en supplément de l'édition américaine qu'après avoir tardivement décidé d'écrire, il se rendit en Haïti avec une vague idée de roman. S'ensuivirent de nombreux voyages dans le pays, assortis d'autant de découvertes. Son roman ne fut accepté nulle part, mais ce fut selon lui un mal pour un bien tant le travail ultérieur sur la forme brève lui fut bénéfique. Adepte de recherches extensives sur les lieux divers et variés où il situe ses histoires, il envisagea aussi de se rendre en Colombie et en Birmanie, mais son épouse lui fit comprendre que ni le budget familial ni la famille elle-même ne s'en remettraient forcément! Ben Fountain, après avoir eu l'idée initiale pour chaque histoire, ne visite finalement pas tous les pays choisis comme cadres pour sa fiction et procède par "sursaturation", collectant des données de tous ordres avant de les oublier après assimilation. Au vu du résultat, il semble que Fountain arrive effectivement parfaitement à subordonner toutes ses recherches à sa mise en récit, et à ses personnages souvent plus ou moins déplacés ou à côté de la plaque (Américains en Colombie, en Birmanie, ou en Haïti, par exemple - cf ci-dessus ou la présentation de l'éditeur sur la page de l'édition française mise en lien ci-dessus).

Dans ces histoires figurent donc des personnages tels qu'un ornithologue 'en résidence' dans un campement de rebelles colombiens, profitant de ce séjour forcé pour faire une découverte scientifique majeure ("Oiseaux de la cordillère centrale en voie d'extinction"); un golfeur de deuxième zone promu au rang de Tiger Woods par les généraux birmans ("Le 'Tigre' d'Asie"); des idéalistes frustrés en Haïti (américains ou haïtiens : "Rêve haïtien" et "Bouki et la cocaïne"); une femme en mission pour une ONG en Sierra Leone qui s'entiche d'un trafiquant de 'diamants de sang' ("La gueule du lion"); une femme de soldat de retour au pays, qui n'en revient pas de devoir partager son homme avec une déesse vaudou ("Les meilleurs sont déjà pris"); un homme dont la vie se définit en partie par ses rencontres avec des personnes qui ont côtoyé Che Guevara de plus ou moins près (nouvelle-titre); un pianiste virtuose de la 1ère moitié du 19ème siècle, d'une vélocité redoutable, à laquelle son 11ème doigt à la main droite ne manque pas de contribuer - compositeur d'une 'Fantaisie pour onze doigts', il laisse la place à une toute jeune pianiste dotée de la même particularité, qui va à son tour vouloir jouer la Fantaisie, mais dans un tout autre environnement, la Vienne du tournant du siècle ("Fantaisie pour onze doigts").

Au total, comme c'est inévitable, un recueil qu'on pourra juger inégal mais dont le niveau d'ensemble est très homogène. Si j'aime beaucoup les deux premières nouvelles citées, idéalement ironiques, et les récits haïtiens, profondément désenchantés, je dois avouer ma préférence, en fin de compte, pour "Fantaisie pour onze doigts", peut-être parce qu'elle clôt le recueil en tranchant volontairement avec tout ce qui précède. Sur le mode de l'étude pseudo-historique s'intéressant de près à des personnalités et épisodes oubliés de l'histoire des arts - ici, la musique - cette nouvelle brasse beaucoup avec une virtuosité certaine. Passées les premières pages consacrées à ce Liszt à onze doigts, le récit se poursuit sur fond de pangermanisme et d'antisémitisme galopants, et s'amuse à faire revenir valser quelques grands mouvements et figures viennois. Parfaitement maîtrisé et d'autant plus frappant étant donné le changement radical de lieu, de temps et d'atmosphère.

A l'image de ses nouvelles si apparemment dissemblables, Ben Fountain est un caméléon stylistique. Sa prose se passe d'images élaborées, mais elle sait être aussi précise que variée. La traduction de Michel Lederer arrive, comme presque toujours avec lui, à restituer cette langue assez dense à défaut d'être recherchée. Si l'on a le choix, il va de soi qu'il vaut mieux se porter sur l'édition originale, mais on ne peut pas dire que la traduction française démérite.

Quoi qu'il en soit, je conseille d'autant plus les recueils de nouvelles chez Terres d'Amérique que la sélection qu'ils opèrent parmi les nouvellistes américains est sans doute plus drastique que pour les romans - les éditeurs ne sont pas si nombreux à en proposer régulièrement quand il ne s'agit pas de grands noms - et je dois dire que j'ai rarement été déçu par les écrivains qu'ils ont révélés chez nous. Depuis, certains d'entre eux ont donné des romans de grande qualité (ex. Await Your Reply / Cette vie ou une autre pour Dan Chaon ; à voir pour le roman de Ben Fountain), d'autres continuent à exceller dans la forme brève. Toujours est-il que ces écrivains méritent sans doute plus de lecteurs et de reconnaissance qu'ils n'en ont. Pourvu que Terres d'Amérique continue le travail de fond... et que plus de lecteurs choisissent de donner leur chance à des recueils de nouvelles!

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories Kindle Edition

Customers who bought this item also bought

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From Bookmarks Magazine

Review

From the Back Cover

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

Ben Fountain

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries