---
product_id: 14022325
title: "Shantytown"
brand: "césar aira"
price: "RM135"
currency: MYR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.com.my/products/14022325-shantytown
store_origin: MY
region: Malaysia
---

# Shantytown

**Brand:** césar aira
**Price:** RM135
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Shantytown by césar aira
- **How much does it cost?** RM135 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.com.my](https://www.desertcart.com.my/products/14022325-shantytown)

## Best For

- césar aira enthusiasts

## Why This Product

- Trusted césar aira brand quality
- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

Shantytown

## Images

![Shantytown - Image 1](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51MSRN1G7IL.jpg)
![Shantytown - Image 2](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41S80v60deL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A trip to the funhouse
  

*by R***N on Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2014*

The setting is Buenos Aires in the 1990's.  The protagonist is Maxi, a large, muscular young man, who is good-natured but rather simple-minded.  Maxi spends his mornings at the gym and in the afternoons and evenings he helps, more or less as a Good Samaritan, trash-pickers load their carts and haul them back to Shantytown, where the destitute of Buenos Aires live in shacks along narrow streets brightly lit with pirated electricity.That set-up is somewhat unusual.  What César Aira does with it is more so, as the plot becomes increasingly surreal.  Maxi's daily excursions into Shantytown with the trash-pickers attract the notice of a corrupt policeman, who begins to tail him.  Others join the plot:  Maxi's younger sister and her equally fatuous girlfriend, a Bolivian girl who works as a maid and lives in Shantytown, a mysterious Indian known as "the Pastor" who seemingly has connections to illegal drug trafficking and a fundamentalist evangelical sect, and a crusading celebrity judge with a cadre of elite police officers under her command and a gaggle of television camera crews and chatty news girls who follow in her wake.  The novella culminates in an apocalyptic deluge in the midst of Shantytown.I am a little ambivalent about César Aira, yet I keep reading him.  This is the fifth novella of his that I have read in translation.  (He has written well over fifty, most of which have not been translated into English.)  Every one that I have read is nominally set in Aira's native Argentina, but elements of the fantastic elbow aside most indicia of realism.  I normally am not a fan of fantasy.  But Aira handles it so well, in such wholly unexpected ways and with a rather droll delivery, that I keep coming back for more.Aira's narrative meanders, taking all sorts of twists and turns.  The cumulative effect can be disorienting, as Aira playfully acknowledges near this tale's end, when one of the characters "turned her head with a look of shock and horror, as if to say 'This is too much!  If there's one more twist in the plot . . .'  And perhaps her dismay was justifiable.  As a beekeeper may be killed by just one more sting because of all the toxins that have accumulated in his system * * * there may be a limit to the quandaries that a mind can accommodate."As with the other Aira works I have read, the question arose upon closing the book:  What was that all about?  With SHANTYTOWN, at least, I have a possible answer:  it is an anti-drug morality tale.  But that might be me exercising my preference for meaning in literary works and imposing it where the author was simply writing a story -- in this case, an occasionally violent but nonetheless intriguing one with a series of surprises.  It is like a trip to the funhouse.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    It was a great read!
  

*by L***N on Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2016*

There were so many twists and turns. The characters all had stories that relate to one another and that made the story more interesting. It may be hard to follow at times because the story does jump from one character to another. You may find yourself making a character web just to understand the story a little better. It really lets you see how authority figures and the media play in role in what goes on in our world and how reality can be distorted to make things more interesting for an audience. Recommend for anyone who wants a great read!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Powerful Read
  

*by K***R on Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2014*

Aira seemingly at his most powerful here. He builds the Shantytown into the main character of his mystery and at the end it feels so much more fulfilling than a weak Deus Ex Machina. The mystery is both deepened and revealed in the shadow of the shantytown and the force that a simple setting could have is set free here. Aira is an incredible gift from Argentina and his works should be required reading.

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**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.com.my/products/14022325-shantytown](https://www.desertcart.com.my/products/14022325-shantytown)

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*Product available on Desertcart Malaysia*
*Store origin: MY*
*Last updated: 2026-02-22*