La Reconstrucción de la Casa de Usher (The Reconstruction of Usher's House)

Abstract A great-grandson of Edgar Allan Poe is summoned by the FBI to act as a representative of humanity in a first contact meeting with a alien civilization. The House of Usher (the topic of one of Poes most famous short stories) has been reconstructed by the aliens, who first visited Earth on the disguise of the Usher family. The aliens want to prevent the invasion of the planet by the same civilization that destroyed theirs, and forced them to take temporary refuge in the Earth in Poes time. They ask for a copy of the book containing Poes account of his encounter with them to be used as a document in the Milky Way court that has to decide on extending Earths quarantine from contact with extra-terrestrial civilisations. The only copy that the narrator can find is a translation into Spanish of Poes short story made by the Argentinean writer Julio Cortázar, which was published by the University of Puerto Rico, and introduced Poes work to the Spanish-speaking world. Context of the publication The short story was short-listed in an international competition organised by the Miami publishing house La Pereza.