The Argentine writer Luisa Valenzuela … is what, after due apologies, still may be called a women's novelist; talkative, impulsive and full of unexpected turns in the flow of her stories. Her earlier work was regarded highly: the novels Hay que sonreír (1966) and Como en la guerra (1977); the short-story collections Los heréticos (1967), Aquí pasan cosas raras (1975) and Libro que no muerde (1980)…. (p. 438)

[Cambio de armas] contains five stories of varying length. All have as theme the relationship between men and women, mostly in the form of love affairs that are either successful or not (in the title story the woman, in the final line of the book, points a revolver at the man—and presumably shoots). The feminist point of view is unmistakable but not obtrusive. Nevertheless, the overall impression created by the stories (except the final selection) is that the women suffer injustice. As behooves recent...