ship
Photo of Buenos Aires by asleeponasunbeam used under a Creative Commons license.

Julio Cortázar, The Winners (NYRB, 1999).
In Buenos Aires, a motley collection of people find that they have won the state lottery, the prize being a luxury cruise to an unknown destination. At sea, things go awry for this ship of fools. The passengers are informed that a disease has broken out and that they must be quarantined. Adrift together, strangers become friends and adversaries, and share confidences and misunderstandings. Some are readier than others to accept the conditions in which they find themselves. Cortázar is lauded as one of the foremost Argentine writers of the twentieth century; this was his first novel to be published.

Here is a useful biography of Cortazar from a Finnish site. Here is another bio, from Salem Press, and yet another. Here are posts from Darby M. Dixon III and Jen.

Buy it at Amazon.com.