The Winners

Cortozar had a seminal influence on postwar Latin American fiction, and he was as significant for Garcia Marquez, Fuentes, and Vargas Llosa as his Argentine compatriot, Borges. In The Winners, a mixed group of Buenos Aireans, a cross-section of Argentine society, who have won a trip on a luxury cruise in the lottery, find themselves mysteriously adrift. Cortozar's first novel is a fantastic fiction that is also a parable of social paralysis exploring the universal theme of a society in the grips of terror.