Mariana Enríquez: horror narrator in Spanish

Mariana Enríquez is one of today's most prominent gothic horror and fiction writers.. She of Argentine nationality through her dark works transmits in Spanish the genuine soul of a genre that she has known how to distance from the contempt in which she has been immersed in recent decades.

Thanks to his talent and originality, he has made many non-regular readers of the horror genre venture into reading his stories.as The dangers of smoking in bed o The things we lost in the fire. For the first collection he obtained the City of Barcelona Award of the category «Literature in the Spanish language» in 2017; and she has also been awarded in 2019 with the Herralde Novel Award (ed. Anagram) By Our part of the night.

Biography of the author

Mariana Enríquez was born in Buenos Aires in 1973. She studied Journalism and Social Communication at the National University of La Plata.. His grandmother was one of his earliest influences; through her he drank from the eccentric legends that would later move him to write her stories. However, she always encouraged writing and communication; She was also attracted to music from the very beginning, so she specialized in cultural journalism and music. rock.

At university he became interested in literature and at the age of twenty-one he published his first novel already in the wake of terror: going down is the worst. This title became a bestseller in Argentina and was a benchmark for an entire generation. After beginning his literary career continued in the communication sector working as a journalist autonomously and then for different media. In addition, he has collaborated in different magazines and many of his stories have been published through them.

She has been director of the National Fund for the Arts of Argentina from 2020 to 2022. In 2022 he got a nomination in the horror category for the award Los Angeles Times Book Prizes by The dangers of smoking in bed (2009)

His work

What do you write, how do you write?

He recognizes very different authors as his influences, classics of the XIX-XX centuries and other contemporaries who were born a few decades before her; and that they wrote in English or Spanish. Some examples are: Lovecraft, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Jorge Luis Borges, William Faulkner, Stephen King or Roberto Bolaño.

She is a novel and short story writer.. But he has also written essays on mythology. Enríquez is a horror writer, but in many of her works she simply delves into the anxieties and the dark background of the human being, who can become a victim or executioner. Likewise, many of his stories and stories are inserted in the supernatural and fantastic world.

Mariana Enríquez has been classified in the so-called «new Argentine narrative», that is, the writing of short stories and the production of anthologies that are usually located in a specific genre or theme. This new narrative arises in the 90s, from writers born in the 70s and with an intention to renew their style. For this reason, it can be said that these stories are influenced by the fall in 1983 of the last Argentine dictatorship.

Some of his most recognized works

• going down is the worst (1995). It deals with the problems and anxieties of youth in the 90s. The music rock y from punk is present as a backdrop in this first-time, dark novel, where love and friendship cross the abyss.
• How to completely disappear (2004). The author's second novel paints a harsh portrait of the life of Matías, who must deal with the memory of his father's abuse in an environment of poverty and deprivation.
• the young guard (2005). Collection of stories, in which "El aljibe" stands out, his first published story.
• The dangers of smoking in bed (2009). It is the first storybook of his. Here we find one of her stories published in a previous anthology with other authors: "Neither birthdays nor baptisms." The dangers of smoking in bed There are twelve stories that narrate the most chilling scenes in the anodyne of everyday life. These haunting tales take the reader to an unexpected level of terror.
• The things we lost in the fire (2016). Anthology of twelve new stories that has been translated into more than ten languages. In them, the everyday becomes a source of inspiration for the most disturbing events. Get to delve into themes such as guilt, mercy or cruelty through ordinary characters who seek to help the most unfortunate.
• Our part of the night (2019). It is a novel that uses a secret society in its plot to show the reader the savage rituals and inhuman cruelty of a military dictatorship still recent to be forgotten. Our part of the night mixes supernatural horror with reality.
• The year of the rat (2021). It is a set of horror stories illustrated by Dr. Alderete.