A Sunny Place for Shady People

Langue : English

Publié 2024 par Crown/Archetype.

ISBN :: 978-0-593-73325-7

(1 critique)

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.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. 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 …

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.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. 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.”

4 éditions

Fionnáin a publié une critique de A Sunny Place for Shady People par Mariana Enriquez

Haunting ghost stories

5 étoiles

I read Things We Lost in the Fire, Mariana Enriquez' collection of short stories translated into English not long after it came out in 2017, having found it in a library and taken a chance on it. The visceral and beautifully written horror stories astounded me. And the way that she embeds political and social critique is pitch perfect. After such a brilliant debut I worried that a second book might prove to be a repetition or just nowhere near the same quality. I haven't yet read the lauded The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (her debut in Spanish but second collection translated to English), but this, her third, certainly did not disappoint me.

A Sunny Place for Shady People is literary horror. Across 12 short stories, very few events of any great drama takes place, but strong characters and realistic settings bring everything to life. In each story …

I read Things We Lost in the Fire, Mariana Enriquez' collection of short stories translated into English not long after it came out in 2017, having found it in a library and taken a chance on it. The visceral and beautifully written horror stories astounded me. And the way that she embeds political and social critique is pitch perfect. After such a brilliant debut I worried that a second book might prove to be a repetition or just nowhere near the same quality. I haven't yet read the lauded The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (her debut in Spanish but second collection translated to English), but this, her third, certainly did not disappoint me.

A Sunny Place for Shady People is literary horror. Across 12 short stories, very few events of any great drama takes place, but strong characters and realistic settings bring everything to life. In each story there is a creeping dread or an uncanny unease that grows page by page. In a way, the unease is a little like peeking repeatedly into something private, and this is partly because the stories situate themselves mainly in Argentinian urban and suburban areas, with intimate characters mostly speaking from the first person.

Some moments will continue to haunt me: A character whose face disappears, an accident inside a fridge and a violent terror in a burned out ruin are among the most visceral images. This collection is again brilliant, and Enriquez has cemented her place as one of my favourite short story writers.