"Metaphors, puns, surrealist visions, converted into sharp, disturbing little narratives ... only a poet, and a good one, could have written it."-The Atlantic Monthly. W.S. Merwin's acclaimed short prose--many of which first appeared in The New Yorker--blur the distinction between fiction, poetry, essay, and memoir. Reminiscent of Kafka, Borges, and Beckett, they evoke mythical patterns and unlikely adventures and raise questions about art, reality, and meaning. As the Saturday Review remarked, they have "astonishing range and power." The Book of Fables is a collection of all the short prose from two out-of-print collections, The Miner's Pale Children and Houses and Travellers. The pieces run from a single sentence to a dozen pages and create a poetic landscape both severe and sensuous. --From publisher description.