"Multiple Choice is unlike anything I've ever encountered before. Reading this book is a wonderfully disconcerting and unforgettable experience." —Francisco Goldman, author of Say Her Name"There is no writer like Alejandro Zambra, no one as bold, as subtle, as funny. Multiple Choice is his most accomplished work yet. This book is not to be missed." —Daniel Alarcón, author of At Night We Walk In CirclesA masterful, pioneering new work of fiction by "Latin America's new literary star" (The New Yorker)The works of Alejandro Zambra, "the most talked-about writer to come out of Chile since Bolaño" (New York Times Book Review), are distinguished by their striking originality, their brevity, their strangeness, and their flouting of narrative convention. Now, at the height of his powers, Zambra returns with a book that is the natural extension of these qualities: Multiple Choice.Written in the form of a standardized test, Multiple Choice invites the reader to complete virtuoso language exercises and engage with short narrative passages via multiple-choice questions that are thought-provoking, usually unanswerable, and often absurd. It offers a new kind of reading experience, one where the reader participates directly in the creation of meaning. Full of humor, melancholy, and anger, Multiple Choice is about love and family; privacy and the limits of closeness; how a society is affected by the legacies of the past; and the conviction that, rather than learning to think, we are trained to obey and repeat. Serious in its literary ambition but playful in its execution, Multiple Choice confirms Alejandro Zambra as one of the most important writers working in any language.
Alejandro Zambra is the author of the story collection
Megan McDowell is a Spanish language literary translator from Richmond, Kentucky. With the exception of
For my teachers Juan Luis Morales Rojas, Elizabeth Azócar, Ricardo Ferrada, and Soledad Bianchi
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. MULTIPLE
A) manifold
B) numerous
C) untold
D) five
E) two
2. CHOICE
A) voice
B) one
C) decision
D) preference
E) alternative
3. YOURS
A) hers
B) his
C) mine
D) their
E) ours
4. FIVE
A) six
B) seven
C) eight
D) nine
E) one
5. BLINK
A) sweat
B) nod
C) cough
D) cry
E) bite
6. BODY
A) dust
B) ashes
C) dirt
D) grit
E) smut
7. MASK
A) disguise
B) veil
C) hood
D) face
E) confront
8. BEAR
A) endure
B) tolerate
C) abide
D) panda
E) kangaroo
9. TEACH
A) preach
B) control
C) educate
D) initiate
E) screech
10. COPY
A) cut
B) paste
C) cut
D) paste
E) undo
11. LETTER
A) uppercase
B) lowercase
C) cursive
D) dead
E) silent
12. CUT
A) erase
B) annul
C) blot
D) expunge
E) wound
13. HEARTBREAKING
A) breathtaking
B) earthshaking
C) lovemaking
D) forsaking
E) mistaking
14. BLACKLIST
A) backlist
B) checklist
C) playlist
D) shitlist
E) novelist
15. CHILDHOOD
A) childlike
B) childproof
C) childcare
D) childless
E) childfree
16. PROTECT
A) care for
B) cover for
C) dote on
D) watch over
E) look after
17. PROMISE
A) complete
B) silence
C) promise
D) complete
E) silence
18. PRAY
A) please
B) praise
C) prey
D) prays
E) pleas
19. BLACKOUT
A) whiteout
B) pitch-black
C) lights-out
D) nightfall
E) dead of night
20. RAZE
A) flatten
B) raise
C) level
D) demolish
E) subdue
21. SPARE
A) time
B) room
C) change
D) tire
E) life
22. PAUSE
A) hesitation
B) recess
C) break
D) breath
E) silence
23. SILENCE
A) fidelity
B) complicity
C) loyalty
D) conspiracy
E) cowardice
24. SILENCE
A) silence
B) silence
C) silence
D) silence
E) silence
In exercises 25 through 36, mark the answer that puts the sentences in the best possible order to form a coherent text.
25. Nineteen eighty-something
1. Your father argued with your mother.
2. Your mother argued with your brother.
3. Your brother argued with your father.
4. It was almost always cold.
5. That is all you remember.
A) 2–3 — 1–4 — 5
B) 3–1 — 2–4 — 5
C) 4–1 — 2–3 — 5
D) 4–5 — 1–2 — 3
E) 5–1 — 2–3 — 4
26. The second
1. You try to remember your first Communion.
2. You try to remember your first masturbation.
3. You try to remember the first time you had sex.
4. You try to remember the first death in your life.
5. And the second.
A) 1–5 — 2–3 — 4
B) 1–2 — 5–3 — 4
C) 1–2 — 3–5 — 4
D) 4–5 — 1–2 — 3
E) 4–3 — 2–1 — 5
27. A child
1. You dream that you lose a child.
2. You wake up.
3. You cry.
4. You lose a child.
5. You cry.
A) 1–2 — 4–3 — 5
B) 1–2 — 3–5 — 4
C) 2–3 — 4–5 — 1
D) 3–4 — 5–1 — 2
E) 4–5 — 3–1 — 2
28. Your house
1. It belongs to a bank, but you prefer to think of it as yours.
2. If all goes well, you’ll finish paying for it in 2033.
3. You’ve lived here for eleven years. First with a family, and later on with some ghosts who ended up leaving, too.
4. You don’t like the neighborhood. There are no parks nearby and the air is dirty.
5. But you love this house. You’ll never leave it.
A) 2–3 — 4–5 — 1
B) 3–4 — 5–1 — 2
C) 4–5 — 1–2 — 3
D) 3–1 — 2–4 — 5
E) 1–2 — 4–3 — 5
29. Birthday
1. You wake up early, go for a walk, look for a café.
2. It’s your birthday, but you don’t remember.
