Originally published in Perú in 1928 to great acclaim, The Cardboard House was clearly destined to become a classic. Written during Martín Adán's prodigious adolescence in Barranco —a peaceful sea resort in the coast of Lima—, The Cardboard House is a novel of visionary excursion through the crevices of sensation and memory, moving in a fluid poetic exploration that traverses swiftly from the social to the cosmic. Martín Adán's experimental style has been admired and celebrated by authors as diverse as Mario Vargas Llosa, Allen Ginsberg and Roberto Bolaño; and The Cardboard House stands out in history as a major statement of the avant-garde movements in Latin America.

This new English translation strives to preserve the experimental style of The Cardboard House in its original Spanish language, and intends to reestablish its importance as one of the crucial texts of the Latin American literary avant-garde.