PROSPERO'S MIRROR

($17.95 paperback original; May; 327 pp.; 1-880684-49-7):  A bilingual collection of 16 approximately contemporary stories chosen as their favorites by such esteemed translators as Gregory Rabassa, Edith Grossman, and Helen Lane.  Editor Stavans contributes an imposingly learned prefatory essay ("Translation and Identity"), and the translators themselves add informative brief prefaces to such pleasant surprise inclusions as Uruguayan Felisberto Hernández's edgy "The Crocodile"; Argentinian Ana Maria Shúa's hilarious tale of domestic mayhem and embattled parenthood ("A Good Mother"); and Dalton Trevisan's droll minimalist vignette "Three Shots in the Afternoon."  This high-concept anthology helpfully showcases several other lesser-known writers as well - and joins Oxford's Book of Latin American Short Stories (1997) as one of the best currently available volumes in its field.