Welcome back to the Lovecraft reread, in which two modern Mythos writers get girl cooties all over old Howards sandbox, from those who inspired him to those who were inspired in turn. Mariana Enrquez ( Buenos Aires, 1973) is an Argentine journalist, novelist, and short story writer. So, time to leave her desk and investigate. First, people like these genres, theyre popular. But, it must be said, the men get it tight in her modern gothic short story collection, Things We Lost in the Fire. Most dont. So we share interests then? Its refreshing to encounter somebody so political and literary who, instead of turning from genre, adopts it to save her work falling into preaching or pamphleteering. Author of web-comics, graphic short stories and novels, he has lately popularized the documentary style to relate the recent history, Alberto Chimals Twitter novel, Ciudad X: Novela en 101 Tuits, was originally published on Twitter on October 10, 2014, and subsequently in print version a year later, along with another, University of Oklahoma [1] "The Intoxicated Years" was published in Granta. A very good Sunday morning talk, suggests Mariana, and sounds like she means it. 2021. In "Under the Black Water," Marina is an attorney who works with the people who live in impoverished in the slums of Buenos Aires. Is fear political? Mythos Making: The graffiti on the church includes the name Yog Sothoth amid its seeming gobbledygook. Maybe the girl is lying? Shes relievedobviously, everyone has just gone to practice the murga for carnival, or already started to celebrate a little early. Meanwhile, in his house, the dead man waits dreaming. So what is prisoned under the river? Additionally, the river marks the geographical limit between the city of Buenos Aires and what we call Gran Buenos Aires, or the suburbs. The children born with those defects are, alas, treated more as symbols than characters, or as indications that the river leaches humanity. So you could say that Im working on a novel and on another short storybook. Yeah, skip continents, and the tainted roots of horror will still get you. Enriquez, Mariana. Just a while ago an English work of Antonio Di Benedetto was recovered. Shadow Over Argentina: Mariana Enriquezs Under the Black Water. But hes not getting out, and neither is she. He came out of the water. Meet Mariana Enriquez, Argentine journalist and author, whose short stories are of decapitated street kids (heads skinned to the bone), ritual sacrifice and ghoulish children sporting sharpened teeth. The Villas not empty any more; the drums are passing in front of the church. I had opened by complimenting this cocktail of politics and cult horror in her work. Beyond this empty area live the citys poor by the thousands. In his house, says the boy, the dead man waits dreaming. The priest is furious, and furious with Pinat for being stupid enough to come. Its not that her protagonists fear a slide into poverty, but that the niceness of their lives is so clearly perched on evil filth. Loading. Argentinean literature, especially whats been written within the last forty years, after the dictatorship, is profoundly political. In "Angelita Unearthed," the eponymous infant wears its feet down to the "little white bones" as it follows the narrator into an . The body of Emanuel Lpez, the second boy, still hasnt surfaced. This is not fantasy divorced from reality, but a keener perception of the ills that we wade through. Under the Black Water isnt quite a Shadow Over Innsmouth retelling, but it riffs on the same tune. Then, when I was a bit older, 8 or 9, this was the time when the crimes of the dictatorship came [to public knowledge]. 208 pages. Enriquez: I always write for myself. Emanuel means god is with us. But what god? Its just that even the weirdest fiction needs a way to elide the seams between real-world horror and supernatural horrorand many authors have similar observations about the former. The tradition of horror and mystery stories fascinates me. I will concentrate on two books of short stories by Enriquez, Los peligros de fumar en la cama [The dangers of smoking in bed] (2009) and Things We Lost In the Fire (2016), in order to explain the singularity of her fiction, which we might synthesize in the militant use of the gothic, permeated by feminism and necropolitics. Botting, Ellis, Patrick, Stevens, Williams, Gross, Mighall, Punter, and Byron, among others). Things We Lost in the Fire: Stories ( Spanish: Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego) is a short story collection by Mariana Enriquez. Never mind how the priest knows shes there about Emanuel, or knows about the pregnant girl who pointed her this way. In Enriquezs world, no one is adequately shielded. We dont know what the awful spectre is, gray and dripping, that sits on the bed with its bloody teeth. After the cop leaves, a pregnant teenager comes in, demanding a reward for information about Emanuel. Benedetto was tortured by the dictators militiathey faked his execution and he suffered a great deal. Ana Gallegos Cuiasis full professor in the Department of Spanish Literature of the University of Granada. And he wants to meet Pinat. His life and works were never the same afterthat. [Scheduled] South American: Things We Lost in the Fire, by Mariana Enriquez, "Under the Black Water" Welcome to the discussion of "Under the Black Water," the 10th story from Mariana Enrquez's Things We Lost in the Fireshort story collection. In Under the Black Water, a female district attorney pursues a lead into the city's most dangerous neighbourhood, where she becomes trapped in a "living nightmare". He runs Debutiful, a site dedicated to celebrating debut authors and their books. The Writing Life in Argentina in the 1990s, Kelly Link Makes Fairy Tales Even Weirder Than You Remember, When Reality is More Terrifying Than Cursed Bunnies, Booktails from the Potions Library, with Mixologist Lindsay Merbaum. I think that most readers think that the first story in the collection ('The Dirty Kid') is the best one, and indeed - it's a great story. But behind her, footsteps squelch: one of the deformed children. Yamil Corvalns body has already washed up, a kilometer from the bridge. Nonetheless, in the twentieth and twenty-first century it has called the attention of critics, since many members of the latest generation of Argentine fiction writers (Oliverio Coelho, Selva Almada, Hernn Ronsino, Pedro Mairal, Luciano Lamberti, and Samanta Schweblin) have revitalized literary horror as a critique of Argentine politics: of the military dictatorship, of the States abuses, of the ecological apocalypse, of femicides, of the uncontrolled power of cartels and drug traffickers, etc. He came out of the water. There were terms that you didnt understand, like political prisoner, or detention camps., In one story, The Intoxicated Years, a trio of adolescent girls go feral during the vacuum, post dictatorship, when hyperinflation was accelerating and the countrys infrastructure failing. Even for me and Ive been there. These industries run unregulated by the State. But Pinat does, and doesnt try to investigate the slum from her desk like some of her colleagues. https://medium.com/media/11bfe3a6b4f7b0925df45e65c1c190a5/href. It was something biblical. Hes only been back a little while. Hes tried! I hope theyve also translated works by Roberto Arlt into English, he was great. Defiled churches, shambling inhuman processions hey. Normally there are people. Its stench, he said, was caused by its lack of oxygen. In short, Mariana Enriquez reads Argentine society with a feminist lens that evinces the structural violence imposed by necropolitics, class inequality, and gender. What makes you do something like that? Welcome to r/bookclub! I want my stories to have an air of familiarity, especially those in a collection or in a book. Translation: Under the Black Water [English] (2017) El chico sucio (2016) also appeared as: Translation: The Dirty Kid [English] (2017) But the police throwing people in there, that was stupid. She met Father Francisco, who told her that no one even came to church. And it definitely shouldnt be swelling. She met Father Francisco, who told her that no one even came to church. New York. And it definitely shouldnt be swelling. The themes of horror and fantasy work for me in two ways. With undergraduate and doctorate degrees in Hispanic Philology and an undergraduate degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Granada, she has been a contractor with the Ramn y Cajal Program and a visiting researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, Princeton, Paris-Sorbonne University, the University of Buenos Aires, and Yale. Considering her writings overlap between Borges and King, Ocampo and Jackson, an accurate term might be 'black magical realism', and its possible this strange genre brew is a result of Enriquez' historical vantage point; born just prior to the coup but too young to be complicit, or even fully aware. The voices of the women are so powerful that were left on the side, and thats kind of disturbing. While chatting with the Argentine author, Im nave enough to bring this point up. He passes her, gliding toward the church. An emaciated, nude boy lies chained in a neighbor's courtyard. Her absence is absolutely not due to nefarious extraterrestrial body-snatching, we promise. Subscribe toTheKenyon Reviewand every issue will be delivered to your door and your device! But they project bravery as well as outrage at the awful muck theyve dipped into. Because even if its a long time ago, even if they are trained as a democratic force, theres still a sediment there of that brutality and impunity the power that they used to have over the people that somehow is still there., The collection's translator, Megan McDowell, states so perfectly in an excellent afterword: The horror comes not only from turning our gaze on desperate populations; it comes from realizing the extent of our blindness. This feeds well into Enriquez reply to me when asked why she focusses on the darker side of her country. And I think thats an effect of CsarAiras literature., Then, after some chit chat and pleasantries (a reference to Dawn of the Dead amongst them), shes off to prepare for some sort of party later in the day, which it seems is being approached in the style of her writing: It's a BBQ basically, but brutal., Things We Lost in the Fire is out now, published by Portobello Books, RRP 12.99. To what extent do neoliberal politics bring about the appalling precarity of social classes and individuals? But what is the cause of this resurgence and predominance of the gothic in recent years? TW for suicide. Enriquez wants to tell us about poverty, gentrification and a crippling economy, but first and foremost - she wants to scare the shit out of us, and does it marvelously. Maybe in the past few years politicization has become more pronounced there; but in Argentina, politics has always dominated public discourse. I was struck by the cruelty of those police officers. The church has been painted yellow, decorated with a crown of flowers, and the walls are covered with graffiti: YAINGNGAHYOGSOTHOTHHEELGEBFAITHRODOG. She is currently Principal Investigator of theI+D LETRAL project, director of the "Ider-Lab" Scientific Unit of Excellence: Criticism, Languages, and Cultures in Iberoamerica, and Vice Dean of Culture and Research of the Department of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Granada. Yeah, yeah. An abandoned house brims with shelves holding fingernails and teeth. Girls can be like bees or like locusts: there's something toxic and delicious and exotic about . This collection comes with a trigger warning for body horror, abuse, neglect, violence against children, teens, and women, self-harm, drug use, discussion of rape and sexual assault, animal cruelty, disordered eating, and police brutality. Except these teenagers are thoroughly unlikeable, and they take teenage callousness and self-centeredness to unusual levels. Its also challenging to not be repetitive. under the black water mariana enriquez. On the southern edge of the city, past the Moreno Bridge, the city frays into abandoned buildings and rusted signs. Well, maybe not always that last. A fact that made him feel very un-Argentinian. And of course, whatever lies beneath the river might have been less malevolent, if it hadnt spent all that time bathing its ectoplasm in toxic sludge. The children born with those defects are, alas, treated more as symbols than characters, or as indications that the river leaches humanity. Violence flaunts itself, intruding on everyday life. [3], Reviews of the collection highlighted Enriquez's dark and haunting style. Pinats dressed down from her usual DA suits, and carries only enough money to get home and a cell phone to hand muggers if needed. Meet Mariana Enriquez, Argentine journalist and author, whose short stories are of decapitated street kids (heads skinned to the bone), ritual sacrifice and ghoulish children sporting sharpened teeth. The world demands their sacrifice. By Mariana Enriquez December 11, 2016 It's harder to breathe in the humid north, up there so close to Brazil and Paraguay, the rushing river guarded by mosquito sentinels and a sky that can. Our Privacy Notice has been updated to explain how we use cookies, which you accept by continuing to use this website. by Mariana Enriquez. The priest refers to them as retards, but the narrative itself isnt doing much better. Its one thing to mistreat and scare a young man, but its a very different thing to throw him into that hellishriver. Instead theres a wooden pool topped with a freshly slaughtered cows head. In the slum Buenos Aires frays into abandoned storefronts, and an oil-filled river decomposes into dangerous and deliberate putrescence.. Hallelujah? Clearly these acts, and the concomitant economic instability and corruption, provide the earth for Enriquezs tales. Body horror based on real bodies is horrible, but not necessarily in the way the author wants. I love the country, but I think thats why Im harsh with it Im harsh because I care about it and I want it to change.. It is a story that shares echoes with Schweblin's Fever Dream, in that belief in the occult becomes confused with the damaging physiological effects of certain poisons. Since Esteban Echeverras foundational 1871 work The Slaughter Yard, Argentine literature has offered plentiful examplesArlt, Lamborghini, Chejfec, etc.of the representation of forms of violence. The rejection of maternity, approached via the supernatural (i.e. Anne wasnt able to submit a commentary this week. Normally theres music, motorcycles, sizzling grills, people talking. A line of people playing the same loud snare drums as in the murga, led by deformed children with their skinny arms and mollusk fingers, followed by women, most of them fat . and our But, in my opinion, she goes further, developing what we might call a gothic feminism that proclaims the empowerment of women, building upon the sinister, as a process of subjectivization. Shadow Over Argentina: Mariana Enriquez's "Under the Black Water". She shows us. I just wrote a review of the concert, but on another level, I always have antenna for this weirdness.. $24.00. Enriquez: Time! That pause before the inevitable is the space of fabulist fiction, torqueing open the rigid rules of reality to create a gap of possibility. In the distance, she hears drums. Personalize your subscription preferences here. After all, a living boy is one less crime to accuse the cops of. The chairs have been cleared out, along with the crucifix and the images of Jesus and Our Lady. Why cant we be the protagonists here?. Today were reading Mariana Enriquezs Under the Black Water, first published in English in Things We Lost in the Fire, translated by Megan McDowel. Welcome to the discussion of Under the Black Water, the 10th story from Mariana Enrquez's Things We Lost in the Fire short story collection. Hey, wait a seconddoes this sound familiar to anyone else? Enriquez spent her childhood in Argentina during the years of the infamous Dirty War, which ended when she was ten. Virgilio Piera said that Kafka was a costumbrista writer in Havana; we might suggest, with Enriquez in mind, that the gothic is a costumbrista genre in Argentina. My parents let me read everything, and it really read like horror, especially if you were a child that didnt know the distinction between fiction and reality so clearly. Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Our Privacy Notice has been updated to explain how we use cookies, which you accept by continuing to use this website. Under the Black Water: A nightmarish story of a woman who tries to find the murderer of a teenage boy, a slum city full of violence and death, and the cult of the dead. But the police throwing people in there, that was stupid. The slum spreads along the black river, to the limits of vision. I interviewed Enriquez via email; I wrote to her in English and she responded in Spanish, with Jill Swanson then translating. You Are Here: ross dress for less throw blankets apprentissage des lettres de l'alphabet under the black water mariana enriquez. Maybe the girl is lying? "She dreamed that . They learned how to swim. The time stamp suggests that he at least knew that two young men were thrown into the Ricachuelo River. You shouldnt have come, says Father Francisco. Its interesting to me that there can be a certain disdain for whats popular, but I reject that, thats an elitist way of thinking. The church has been painted yellow, decorated with a crown of flowers, and the walls are covered with graffiti: YAINGNGAHYOGSOTHOTHHEELGEBFAITHRODOG. All Rights Reserved. The story ends with a lingering look towards her exemplary act of violence, which must soon follow. Yeah, Im sure, agrees Mariana matter of factly, because were all about politics and football. The fact that Mariana has no such qualms is in some ways thanks to Aira. Its been pointed out to me a lot, she replies.