Multiple Choice

My Documents

Named one of the Best Books of 2015 by
The Boston Globe

A
New York Times
Editors' Choice

Finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award

“All of [Zambra's books] are very short and strikingly original. . . . In his new book, Zambra returns to the twin sources of his talent—to his storytelling vitality, that living tree which blossoms often in these pages, and to his unsparing examination of recent Chilean history.”

—James Wood,
The New Yorker

“Zambra's books have long shown him to be a writer who, at the sentence level, is in a world all his own. . . . Let us now forget the smallness of simply spearheading a new Latin American fiction.
My Documents
goes beyond that, brighter than most anything we'd call exceptional, yesterday or today and in any language.”

—NPR

“This dynamite collection of stories has it all—Chile and Belgium, exile and homecomings, Pinochet and Simon and Garfunkel—but what I love most about the tales is their strangeness, their intelligence, and their splendid honesty.”

—Junot Díaz, NewYorker.com

“Zambra knows how to turn the familiar inside out, but he also knows how to wrap us up in it. His generous stories satisfy our demand for narrative even as they question it.”

—Natasha Wimmer,
The New York Times Book Review

“[A] dazzlingly funny and playful collection.”

—John Freeman,
The Boston Globe

“Sentence-by-sentence pleasure . . . [Zambra's] most substantial achieve-ment yet.”

—
The Seattle Times

“Much like Junot Díaz's
Drown
, the stories in Chilean author Zambra's collection are discrete tales that blend together with an impressive fluidity. . . . Through eleven stories, the author's charming cast examines religion, soccer, relationships, and the lure of solitude—all from a distinctly Chilean perspective. But the view is also a youthful one, neatly capturing the puzzling process of trying to figure out who you really are. A–”

—
Entertainment Weekly

“Compulsive . . . rich and thought-provoking . . . If you are going to read Zambra, which you should, don't just read
My Documents
: read everything he's done.”

—
The Guardian
(London)

“Zambra's sentences comically dance around narrative convention without disrupting the immersive pull of the story. I can think of no one else who does this, and the effect is spellbinding. . . . His fiction is, quite simply, some of the best being produced today.”

—Matt Kessler, The Rumpus

“Zambra is so alert to the intimate beauty and mystery of being alive that in his hands a raindrop would feel as wide as a world.”

—Anthony Marra, author of
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

“
My Documents
is an act of literary levitation—luminous, magical, and profound, written with the mysterious quality of weightlessness.”

—Jess Walter, author of
Beautiful Ruins

“Zambra is one of my favorite living writers. He brings such clarity, exactitude, compassion, oddity, and inventiveness to his books that every new volume he publishes goes on my read-this-immediately list.”

—Kevin Brockmeier, author of
The Brief History of the Dead

Ways of Going Home

“[Alejandro Zambra's novels] are written with startling talent. And Zambra's latest novel represents, I think, his deepest achievement. . . . The best conjuring trick is the one where you're shown how it's done, which in no way contradicts your belief that what you've seen is magic.”

—Adam Thirlwell,
The New York Times Book Review

“In many ways, [this] book recalls the miniature roominess Philip Roth achieved in his great novel,
The Ghost Writer
. The stories we tell imagine us as much as us them, Zambra reminds, with the power and intensity of a writer who grew up in the shadow of a terrible war.”

—
The Boston Globe

“Funny, contemplative, and quietly moving,
Ways of Going Home
pulls off the intoxicating trick of making the world feel smaller in its familiar touchstones found in a time of unique tragedy.”

—
Los Angeles Times

“Complex yet sophisticated, [
Ways of Going Home
] places Zambra at the spearhead of a new Chilean fiction and sets him alongside other Latin American writers such as Colombia's Juan Gabriel Vásquez, who weave some of the continent's most difficult historical themes into an exciting modern art form.”

—
The Guardian
(London)

“I envy Alejandro the obvious sophistication and exquisite beauty of the pages you are about to read, a work which is filled with the heartfelt vulnerability of testimony. I loved it and I read it with the great joy of anticipation that one has reading a writer one hopes to read more and more of in the future.”

—Edwidge Danticat,
Granta

“I read all of Alejandro Zambra's novels back-to-back because they were such good company. His books are like a phone call in the middle of the night from an old friend, and afterward, I missed the charming and funny voice on the other end, with its strange and beautiful stories.”

—Nicole Krauss, author of
Great House

PENGUIN BOOKS

MULTIPLE CHOICE

Alejandro Zambra
is the author of the story collection
My Documents
, which was a finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and three previous novels:
Ways of Going Home
,
The Private Lives of Trees
, and
Bonsai
. His books have been translated into more than ten languages. He has received numerous prizes in Chile, including the Chilean Literary Critics' Award in 2007 and the National Book Council's award for best novel in 2007 and 2012, as well as international distinctions such as the Prince Claus Award in Holland. His stories have appeared in
The New Yorker
,
The Paris Review
,
Harper's
,
Tin House
, and
McSweeney's
, among others. In 2010, he was named one of
Granta'
s Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists. A 2015–2016 Cullman Center fellow at the New York Public Library, he divides his time between New York and Santiago, Chile.

Megan McDowell
is a Spanish language literary translator from Richmond, Kentucky. With the exception of
Bonsai
, she has translated all of Zambra's books. She lives in Santiago,
Chile.

Bonsai

The Private Lives of Trees

Ways of Going Home

My
Documents

PENGUIN BOOKS

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

penguin.com

Copyright © 2014 by Alejandro Zambra

Translation copyright © 2016 by Megan McDowell

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Originally published in Spanish as
Facsimil
by Editorial Huerders, Santiago de Chile.

A selection from this book appeared in
The New Yorker
under the title “Reading Comprehension: Test No. 1.”

ISBN 9781101992173

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design: Nayon Cho

For my teachers Juan Luis Morales Rojas, Elizabeth Azócar, Ricardo Ferrada, and Soledad
Bianchi

Acclaim for Alejandro Zambra

About the Author

Also by Alejandro Zambra

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

I.  Excluded Term

II.  Sentence Order

III.  Sentence Completion

IV.  Sentence Elimination

V.  Reading Comprehension

In exercises 1 through 24, mark the answer that corresponds to the word whose meaning has no relation to either the heading or the other words
listed.

 

1.  
M
ULTIPLE

A)  manifold

B)  numerous

C)  untold

D)  five

E)  two

2.  
C
HOICE

A)  voice

B)  one

C)  decision

D)  preference

E)  alternative

3.  
Y
OURS

A)  hers

B)  his

C)  mine

D)  their

E)  ours

4.  
F
IVE

A)  six

B)  seven

C)  eight

D)  nine

E)  one

5.  
B
LI
NK

A)  sweat

B)  nod

C)  cough

D)  cry

E)  bite

6.  
B
ODY

A)  dust

B)  ashes

C)  dirt

D)  grit

E)  smut

7.  
M
ASK

A)  disguise

B)  veil

C)  hood

D)  face

E)  confront

8.  
B
EAR

A)  endure

B)  tolerate

C)  abide

D)  panda

E)  kangaroo

9.  
T
EACH

A)  preach

B)  control

C)  educate

D)  initiate

E)  screech

10.  
C
OPY

A)  cut

B)  paste

C)  cut

D)  paste

E)  undo

11.  
L
ETTER

A)  uppercase

B)  lowercase

C)  cursive

D)  dead

E)  silent

12.  
C
UT

A)  erase

B)  annul

C)  blot

D)  expunge

E)  wound

13.  
H
EARTBREAKING

A)  breathtaking

B)  earthshaking

C)  lovemaking

D)  forsaking

E)  mistaking

14.  
B
LACKLIST

A)  backlist

B)  checklist

C)  playlist

D)  shitlist

E)  novelist

15.  
C
HILDHOOD

A)  childlike

B)  childproof

C)  childcare

D)  childless

E)  childfree

16.  
P
ROTECT

A)  care for

B)  cover for

C)  dote on

D)  watch over

E)  look after

17.  
P
ROMISE

A)  complete

B)  silence

C)  promise

D)  complete

E)  silence

18.
  
P
RAY

A)  please

B)  praise

C)  prey

D)  prays

E)  pleas

19.
  
B
LACKOUT

A)  whiteout

B)  pitch-black

C)  lights-out

D)  nightfall

E)  dead of night

20.  
R
AZE

A)  flatten

B)  raise

C)  level

D)  demolish

E)  subdue

21.  
S
PARE

A)  time

B)  room

C)  change

D)  tire

E)  life

22.  
P
AUSE

A)  hesitation

B)  recess

C)  break

D)  breath

E)  silence

23.  
S
ILENCE

A)  fidelity

B)  complicity

C)  loyalty

D)  conspiracy

E)  cowardice

24.  
S
ILENCE

A)  silence

B)  silence

C)  silence

D)  silence

E)  silence