Raymond Carver achieved success thanks to a handful of volumes of stories published in the last twelve years of his life. His career was short because of his early death. However, his work has an unparalleled intensity and has left an indelible mark; Its influence has spread all over the world. It was, along with Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff, the ultimate exponent of what was dubbed "dirty realism." In his stories, laconic, precise, with a contained emotional intensity, he transforms life into literature in the wake of Hemingway and especially Chekhov, his great teacher. From him he learned to portray with profound humanity those helpless beings, beaten by life, whom he turns into everyday heroes: couples on the brink of dissolution, children who try to communicate with their parents, alcoholics in search of a second Opportunity, unemployed, current people of the deepest and most real America. His stories form an elusive and fragmentary "great American novel." And it is that in Carver is the essence of the true America-home, mad, perplexed-and above all the essence of the human soul portrayed through a look that rejects any sentimental excess, but guided by a refined style, we It strikes directly in the heart as only the great literature can do. In this Compedium are: Do you want to please shut up, please ?, What we talk about when we talk about love, Cathedral, Three yellow roses, If you need me, call me. "Carver's concise and heartbreaking tales are a delight. Sovereign "(Ian McEwan); "One of the most original and authentic voices of American literature. A great writer. You must read everything he wrote "(Salman Rushdie); "The great goldsmith of the American tale" (The Daily Telegraph); "Carver's America is clouded by pain and the loss of dreams, but it's not as fragile as it sounds. It is a place of survivors and a place full of stories ... Carver has achieved what many more gifted writers fail: he has invented his own universe "(Michael Wood, The New York Times).