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In this companion volume to the widely acclaimed Blackwater: The Book of Fantastic Literature, master anthropologist Alberto Manguel assembles nearly 70 more hypnotic tales from writers such as Julian Barnes, Gabrial Garcia Marquez, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Margaret Atwood. (1990)Tags
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Simply marvelous. There isn't a bad story in the entire collection. While there are a few classics you have read before--and that you may not have thought of as tales of the fantastic--there are many stories and writers that even a fairly well read person will not have known before. Prepare to be massively entertained.
Rather than strictly fantasy, or (as the compiler complains) magical realism, this is an anthology of stories wherein the fantastic spills into the everyday. Unfortunately for me, this means some forteana, and too much horror. At least now I learned that Eliade wrote fiction, which I'd not realised. I want to read more.
Companion collection to Black Water with more stories of the fantastical to keep the dreamers dreaming.
In progress....started Apr 1, 2025, last updated Sep 7, 2025
Reading this excellent anthology with The Short Story Club, one story per week. Lots of lively discussions there! Come join us at https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1187035-the-short-story-club. Currently we have read 18 of the 65 stories.
Stories we have read thus far and links to my review on each:
Grace Amundson, The Child Who Believed
Jerome Bixby, It's a Good Life
E.B. White, The Door
Elizabeth Bowen, Mysterious Kor
Mircea Eliade, Nights at Serampore
Isaac Bashevis Singer, ✦The Dead Fiddler
Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Phoenix
Heinz Ewers, The Spider
Dorothy K Haynes, ✦The Changeling
A.S. Byatt, The July Ghost
Elizabeth Taylor, Poor Girl
May Sinclair, Where Their Fire Is Not show more Quenched
Amos Tutuloa, The Complete Gentleman
Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, The Professor and the Siren
Friedrich Dürrenmatt, ✦The Sausage
William Sansom, A Woman Seldom Found
Angus Wilson, Mummy to the Rescue
Kenzaburō Ōe, Aghwee the Sky Monster
✦ denotes that there was not a short story edition to review in GR, so instead I selected an anthology the story was in and put my review there. show less
Reading this excellent anthology with The Short Story Club, one story per week. Lots of lively discussions there! Come join us at https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1187035-the-short-story-club. Currently we have read 18 of the 65 stories.
Stories we have read thus far and links to my review on each:
Grace Amundson, The Child Who Believed
Jerome Bixby, It's a Good Life
E.B. White, The Door
Elizabeth Bowen, Mysterious Kor
Mircea Eliade, Nights at Serampore
Isaac Bashevis Singer, ✦The Dead Fiddler
Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Phoenix
Heinz Ewers, The Spider
Dorothy K Haynes, ✦The Changeling
A.S. Byatt, The July Ghost
Elizabeth Taylor, Poor Girl
May Sinclair, Where Their Fire Is Not show more Quenched
Amos Tutuloa, The Complete Gentleman
Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, The Professor and the Siren
Friedrich Dürrenmatt, ✦The Sausage
William Sansom, A Woman Seldom Found
Angus Wilson, Mummy to the Rescue
Kenzaburō Ōe, Aghwee the Sky Monster
✦ denotes that there was not a short story edition to review in GR, so instead I selected an anthology the story was in and put my review there. show less
Short Story Club, round 3: I read and revied one story a week, along with The Short Story Club, starting spring 2025 and pausing/stopping after story 27 in November 2025.
You can join the group here.
About the collection
Black Water was published in 1983. See my review of those stories here.
Black Water 2 was published in 1990. The format is much the same as the first book. A wide range of authors, including plenty of ones I've never heard of, and tantalising titles. Each story is prefaced with a few paragraphs about the author. As with volume 1, rather than take the easy and obvious route of publishing them alphabetically by author or chronologically, there's a delicate daisy chain of themes.
I'm in awe at Manguel's achievement in show more compiling two such large, high-quality, and varied collections. This has a simple dedication:
"To my mother,
For an imaginary life."
I take it as a tribute to his mother for nurturing his imagination via literature, but also as a nod to alternative layers of reality, as explored by many of the stories, and also films like The Truman Show, Being John Malkovich, Synedoche, New York, and now Severance.
On the meaning of ‘fantastic’, from the foreword
Stories and reviews
1. The Child who Believed, Grace Amundson, 4*. Review HERE.
2. It's a Good Life, Jerome Bixby, 4*. Review HERE.
3. The Door, EB White, 4*. Review HERE.
4. Mysterious Kôr, Elizabeth Bowen, 4*. Review HERE.
5. Nights at Serampore, Mercea Eliade, 4*. Review HERE.
6. The Dead Fiddler, Isaac Bashevis Singer, 2*. Review HERE.
7. The Phoenix, Sylvia Townsend Warner, 2*. Review HERE.
8. The Spider, Hanns Heinz Ewers, 4*. Review HERE.
9. The Changeling, Dorothy K Haynes, 4*. Review HERE.
10. The July Ghost, AS Byatt, 4*. Review HERE.
11. Poor Girl, Elizabeth Taylor, 4*. Review HERE.
12. Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched, May Sinclair, 4*. Review HERE.
13. The Complete Gentleman, Amos Tutuola, 3*. Review HERE.
14. The Professor and the Siren, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 2*. Review HERE.
15. The Sausage ("Die Wurst"), Friedrich Durrenmatt, 3*. Review HERE.
16. A Woman Seldom Found, William Sansom, 4*. Review HERE.
17. Mummy to the Rescue, Angus Wilson, 2*. Review HERE.
18. Aghwee the Sky Monster, Kenzaburō Ōe, 3*. Review HERE.
19. Bishop Berkeley or Mariana of the Universe, Liliana Heker, 4*. Review HERE.
20. The Saint, Antonia White, 3*. Review HERE.
21. The Ghost of Firozsha Baag, Rohinton Mistry, 4*. Review HERE.
22. The Miracle of Ash Wednesday, Yevgeny Zamyatin, 4*. Review HERE.
23. Heartburn, Hortense Calisher, 3*. Review HERE.
24. The Accident, Ann Bridge, 3*. Review HERE.
25. The Old Woman, Joyce Marshall, 4*. Review HERE.
26. A Short Trip Home, F Scott Fitzgerald, 3*. Review HERE.
27. The Brute, Joseph Conrad, 2*. Review HERE.
Pause/stop?
Story 27 is almost half-way. At this point, the group put this volume aside as too few of the stories were available online, and switched to members picking a story to share each week.
I will probably dip in and out of some of the remaining stories, but may not review them all.
Short Story Club
Short Story Club, round 1: we read Gioia's The Art of the Short Story, which I reviewed HERE.
Short Story Club, round 12: we read Manguel's Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, which I reviewed HERE. show less
You can join the group here.
About the collection
Black Water was published in 1983. See my review of those stories here.
Black Water 2 was published in 1990. The format is much the same as the first book. A wide range of authors, including plenty of ones I've never heard of, and tantalising titles. Each story is prefaced with a few paragraphs about the author. As with volume 1, rather than take the easy and obvious route of publishing them alphabetically by author or chronologically, there's a delicate daisy chain of themes.
I'm in awe at Manguel's achievement in show more compiling two such large, high-quality, and varied collections. This has a simple dedication:
"To my mother,
For an imaginary life."
I take it as a tribute to his mother for nurturing his imagination via literature, but also as a nod to alternative layers of reality, as explored by many of the stories, and also films like The Truman Show, Being John Malkovich, Synedoche, New York, and now Severance.
On the meaning of ‘fantastic’, from the foreword
Unlike the literature of fantasy, in which the world itself — Narnia or Middle Earth — is unreal, fantastic literature finds its bearings in our own landscapes, our cities, our living-rooms, our beds, where suddenly something happens which demands not so much our belief as our lack of disbelief.
Once I defined fantastic literature as 'the impossible seeping into the possible' and found an echo of that definition in a line by Wallace Stevens: 'black water breaking into reality'. It is on this sodden reality that fantastic literature flourishes. The ghost, the wrinkle in time, the mingling of dream and vigil flow into this liquid realm, a realm readers recognize as home, a place where they feel oddly familiar. It is there that readers are at their most vulnerable and there that the fantastic becomes most effective.
Stories and reviews
1. The Child who Believed, Grace Amundson, 4*. Review HERE.
2. It's a Good Life, Jerome Bixby, 4*. Review HERE.
3. The Door, EB White, 4*. Review HERE.
4. Mysterious Kôr, Elizabeth Bowen, 4*. Review HERE.
5. Nights at Serampore, Mercea Eliade, 4*. Review HERE.
6. The Dead Fiddler, Isaac Bashevis Singer, 2*. Review HERE.
7. The Phoenix, Sylvia Townsend Warner, 2*. Review HERE.
8. The Spider, Hanns Heinz Ewers, 4*. Review HERE.
9. The Changeling, Dorothy K Haynes, 4*. Review HERE.
10. The July Ghost, AS Byatt, 4*. Review HERE.
11. Poor Girl, Elizabeth Taylor, 4*. Review HERE.
12. Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched, May Sinclair, 4*. Review HERE.
13. The Complete Gentleman, Amos Tutuola, 3*. Review HERE.
14. The Professor and the Siren, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 2*. Review HERE.
15. The Sausage ("Die Wurst"), Friedrich Durrenmatt, 3*. Review HERE.
16. A Woman Seldom Found, William Sansom, 4*. Review HERE.
17. Mummy to the Rescue, Angus Wilson, 2*. Review HERE.
18. Aghwee the Sky Monster, Kenzaburō Ōe, 3*. Review HERE.
19. Bishop Berkeley or Mariana of the Universe, Liliana Heker, 4*. Review HERE.
20. The Saint, Antonia White, 3*. Review HERE.
21. The Ghost of Firozsha Baag, Rohinton Mistry, 4*. Review HERE.
22. The Miracle of Ash Wednesday, Yevgeny Zamyatin, 4*. Review HERE.
23. Heartburn, Hortense Calisher, 3*. Review HERE.
24. The Accident, Ann Bridge, 3*. Review HERE.
25. The Old Woman, Joyce Marshall, 4*. Review HERE.
26. A Short Trip Home, F Scott Fitzgerald, 3*. Review HERE.
27. The Brute, Joseph Conrad, 2*. Review HERE.
Pause/stop?
Story 27 is almost half-way. At this point, the group put this volume aside as too few of the stories were available online, and switched to members picking a story to share each week.
I will probably dip in and out of some of the remaining stories, but may not review them all.
Short Story Club
Short Story Club, round 1: we read Gioia's The Art of the Short Story, which I reviewed HERE.
Short Story Club, round 12: we read Manguel's Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, which I reviewed HERE. show less
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Author Information
Alberto Manguel is a Canadian writer, translator, editor, and critic. Born in Buenos Aires, he has since resided in Israel, Argentina, Europe, the South Pacific, and Canada.
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Series
Work Relationships
Contains
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic
- Alternate titles
- White Fire: Further Fantastic Literature
- Disambiguation notice
- This collection was called White Fire in the UK and Black Water 2 in the U.S.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Fantasy
- DDC/MDS
- 808.83 — Literature & rhetoric Literature, rhetoric & criticism Composition Literature Collections Collections of fiction
- LCC
- PN6120.95 .F25 .B57 — Language and Literature Literature (General) Literature (General) Collections of general literature Fiction
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 174
- Popularity
- 187,657
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (4.05)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 4
