The collection of short stories "Instructions for Housemaids" (first edition in Greek 2018) introduced to the international audience, ten years after her death, a great author who had unjustly fallen into oblivion. "Evening in Paradise," the second collection by Lucia Berlin, confirms her position in the pantheon of American letters, on par with Raymond Carver and Alice Munro. The twenty-two stories in the book take the reader on a journey to the places where the author lived, in Texas, Chile, New York, and Mexico, introducing them to the most diverse human types, from musicians and painters to drug dealers and restless teenagers, to legends of the entertainment industry, such as John Houston, Ava Gardner, and Liz Taylor. Wherever she is, whatever she describes, Berlin captures the loneliness of people, reveals the beauty behind ugliness, and always discerns hope in the darkness. Some of her heroes struggle with fame, others with the monotony of an unbearable, oppressive daily life, and others with the deprivations of a bohemian existence. At their core autobiographical, her stories transform a life marked by constant movement, successive emotional upheavals, and existential quests with imagination and tenderness. Her subtle humor becomes a vehicle for overcoming every trial, an excavator that brings to the surface the small miracles of every life, which her elegant pen turns into literary gems.