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A labyrinth book that overturns traditional ideas about the relationship between the form and content of a literary work. The collection The Secret Weapon by Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) includes some of the most famous masterpieces of the Argentine classic, which, when read carefully, form a single conceptual whole. They are set in Paris, where Cortázar lived for over 30 years. They are marked by the author's thematic and stylistic stamp: these are film footage of bohemian life in the City of Light, a mixture of reality and fantasy, experimentation with language, poeticised prose, and subtle psychological details. Five philosophical parables, in which intellectual fiction, magical realism and detective story are intertwined. Julio Cortázar's works were the inspiration for many future masters of fine writing. Gabriel García Márquez admitted that in his youth he dreamed that when he grew up, he would learn to write like Julio.

«Time passes, people's circumstances change. But the events of the past do not disappear without a trace, they live on in human memory, sometimes returning and interfering with a new, present reality. One should not forget the past completely, because one day it will remind of itself. This is the leitmotif of the story "The Secret Weapon", where the love of two young Parisians - Pierre and Michelle - is hampered by a brutal trauma that the girl experienced during the war."

Yurko POKALCHUK

«Cortazar's characters are the most ordinary people, they are united by a routine of casual attachments and equally casual disagreements. The atmosphere - cigarette brands, shop windows, counters, bottles of whiskey, pharmacies, airports, platforms - is the most ordinary. The narrator skilfully draws us into his terrifying world, where there is no place for joy. Jorge Luis BORJES