The Devil's Horseshoe and Other Stories is based on the author's experiences as a child growing up in a remote Hungarian village where the people were poor in goods, but rich in tales. Through the telling of fifteen stories, it brings to life the wondrous world of the countryside as people experienced it, which throbs to a different rhythm than the world of city folk. From a naked angel boy who sneaks into a kitchen to pilfer kitchen utensilsat night ("The Sneak Thief"), through a village blacksmith who shoes the Devil's horse (Devil's horseshoe), and the tale of a Party functionary who comes to portion out the land among the peasants but dazed by his power over them leaves with a promise to resurrect the dead ("The China Doll"), each story takes on the quality of a hallucinatory exploration into that part of the soul where beauty, hope, and yearning live in close proximity, and where miracles are a way of life. The lively story-telling, the sparse yet evocative beauty of the language, the persistent yet nonobtrusive narrative presence, make The Devil' Horseshoe and Other Stories a memorable and highly enjoyable example of a very special brand of folk surrealism, the Central Europen counterpart of the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez, but most especially, Isabel Allende.