5.5 They’re Not Metaphorical Demons: Mariana Enriquez and Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra

Novel Dialogue

Booker Prize shortlister Mariana Enriquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, joins Penn State professor Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra and host Chris Holmes to talk about her most recent novel, Our Share of Night, her first to be translated into English. Our Share of Night follows a spiritual medium, Juan, who can commune with the dead and with the world of demons, and his son, Gaspar, as they go on a road trip to outrun a secretive occult society called The Order that hopes to use Juan and Gaspar in their unholy quest for immortality.

Publishers Weekly called it “A masterpiece of literary horror.” In a wide-ranging conversation, Mariana reflects on being a horror writer in Argentina, a country that obsesses over its traumatic past. Indeed, Mariana’s interest in writing fiction in the horror genre was prompted by hearing her first horror stories, the terrors of torture and disappearances under the Argentine Junta government. The three discuss Mariana’s use of violence, especially when it involves children; the various afterlives of the translations of Mariana’s award-winning fiction; and the arborescence of the novel form. Humor and dry wit cut through these weighty topics to make for a lively conversation with one of Latin America’s most important contemporary writers.

Mentions:

• Silvina Ocampo
• Mariana Enriquez, La Hermana Menor
• -The Things We Lost in the Fire
• -The Dirty Kid
• Ray Bradbury, The October Country
• José Donoso
• Juan Carlos Onetti
• Ernesto Sabato
• Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
• Ingmar Bergman, The Hour of the Wolf
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (film)
• Titane (film)
• Pope John Paul II
• The Oulipo Movement
• Aleister Crowley

Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers.

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