When a group of Argentinians win a mysterious lottery, their prize - a luxury cruise - seems too good to question. But as the voyage unfolds, strange and unsettling events begin to mount. The passengers find themselves trapped aboard a ship run by a silent, secretive crew, and the true nature of their journey grows ever more uncertain.

Funny, frightening, and richly lyrical, The Winners is a philosophical thriller of tangled fates and wayward love - an incisive meditation on power, exile, and the myth of the New World.

Julio Cortazar lived in Buenos Aires for the first thirty years of his life, and after that in Paris. His stories, written under the dual influence of the English masters of the uncanny and of French surrealism, are extraordinary inventions, just this side of nightmare. In later life Cortazar became a passionate advocate for human rights and a persistent critic of the military dictatorships in Latin America. He died in 1984.