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Stories
by Mariana Enriquez
Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez.
On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessed—all those birds were once women.
In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.
Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez's stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez's unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her "the most exciting discovery I've made in fiction for some time."
"Enriquez offers a masterful collection full of grotesque body horror, red-hot terror, and mysterious events, revealing the pain and loss endured by women in modern-day Buenos Aires...[Her] stories gain their power through surprise, as they often begin with a realistic setting before taking a terrifying or unsettling swerve, and she brilliantly explores themes of guilt, shame, and vanity. These provocative tales are first-rate literary horror. " —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Enríquez's Our Share of Night (2023) earned her a prominent place among innovative South American writers, and the stories here deliver the same squelchy charms...An uneven collection that nonetheless solidifies Enríquez's reputation as a purveyor of haunting and thought-provoking tales." —Kirkus Reviews
"More trademark Enriquez stories combining the macabre with explorations of womanhood, parenthood and the lasting legacy of Argentina's military dictatorships." —Lit Hub
"Vivid and unnerving, these stories confirm Enriquez as one of Latin America's most original imaginations." —The Bookseller, Editor's Choice
This information about A Sunny Place for Shady People was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mariana Enriquez is a writer based in Buenos Aires. In English, she has published the novel Our Share of Night and two story collections, Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which was a finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction.
Megan McDowell has translated many of the most important Latin American writers working today. Her translations have won numerous prizes, including the National Book Award, and have been nominated for the International Booker Prize four times. She is from Richmond, Kentucky, and lives in Santiago, Chile.
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