Kiss of the spider woman / translated by Allan Baker -- Under a mantle of stars / translated by Ronald Christ -- Mystery of the rose bouquet / translated by Allan Baker Compiled together for the first time, here are three plays by Argentine novelist and playwright Manual Puig: the well-known Kiss of the Spider Woman, a sharply provocative tale of love, victimization, and fantasy, and of the friendship that develops between two strikingly different men imprisoned together in a Latin American jail; Puig's first drama written directly for the stage, Under a Mantle of Stars, a recurring dream that is never ending; and Mystery of the Rose Bouquet, an astute tale of deep compassion and illusion. These eminently readable plays highlight all the gifts that make Puig's fiction so remarkable. This is convincing proof that Manual Puig was one of our most talented writers - no matter what the medium. Puig is the author of seven novels, translated into fourteen languages