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The allegorical story “House Taken Over” comes from Julio Cortázar’s collection of short stories Bestario (1951, “Bestiary”), though it was originally published in 1946
. In this story, the realistic and trivial reality the characters experience in the beginning is destroyed by a haunting, disruptive presence. The story is commonly accepted to be an anti-Peronist piece of fiction as a response to the infamous regime of Juan Perón, the president of Argentina from 1946–55.Read a full plot summary, an analysis of the narrator, and descriptions of the main ideas in "House Taken Over."