Things We Lost in the Fire: Mariana Enriquez

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It was much more tedious and uninteresting than the previous. Jealousy among teenagers leads to the summoning of spirits to kill the people they are jealous of. Very cliched and unoriginal. Josh Rosenblatt (2007-10-19). "Things We Lost in the Fire". The Austin Chronicle . Retrieved 2007-10-27.

Things We Lost In The Fire - Macmillan Things We Lost In The Fire - Macmillan

The “propulsive and mesmerizing” ( The New York Times Book Review) story collection by the International Booker-shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed Enriquez’s particular gift is to intuit that horror and ghost stories – ancient genres, as old as humanity itself – might make better gateways into a country’s past than straightforward narrative. Her ghosts are not conventional spectres, by any means; it is the people – homeless street children, groups of women with a collective history around burns – and the places that she writes about that are demon-haunted.” — Financial Times It's a perfect style to continuously disarm me. There is such a fearlessness here, in imagery and message. I'm a little grossed out by these stories, but also, I'm dazzled. Self, John (2018-11-02). "Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez review – gruesome short stories". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 2019-08-01.

Sometimes I think the crazies aren’t people, they’re not real. They’re like incarnations of the city’s madness, like escape valves. If they weren’t here, we’d all kill each other or die of stress.” Mariana Enriquez gana el premio Ciutat de Barcelona con su último libro de cuentos". 2018-08-10. Archived from the original on 2018-08-10 . Retrieved 2023-06-29. A more oblique look at the terrors of the past is to be found in ‘The Neighbor’s Courtyard’, in which a young couple move into a lovely new house. The reader suspects that it’s too good to be true, and so it proves: Mariana Enriquez is a mesmerizing writer who demands to be read. Like Bolaño, she is interested matters of life and death, and her fiction hits with the force of a freight train. “The Dirty Kid” is one of the most memorable and brave stories I’ve read in years. It lingers in the mind for weeks, and redefined my sense of Buenos Aires, a city I love dearly.”— Dave Eggers Doce cuentos en los que Mariana Enríquez desdibuja con perturbadora eficacia la línea entre lo terrorífico y lo cotidiano. Armándose con elementos de horror clásico tales como apariciones, brujas, edificios encantados o la ouija, pero desplegándolos con un estilo inusualmente modernista que pareciera transformarlos en otra cosa mientras los entremezcla con los horrores que subyacen bajo la superficie de lo que nos gusta denominar el mundo real, aborda desde el fanatismo hasta los fetiches sexuales pasando por algo tan irrevocablemente doloroso como lo fueron las desapariciones de la dictadura.

Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez Review: Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez

A lo largo de estos cuentos volví a encontrar el estilo característico de Enriquez, una autora que logra hacer que lo cotidiano sea perturbador y los lugares cobren vida. Sin embargo, aquí no logré conectar con ninguna de las historias, era empezar a leer y pasar horas releyendo la misma página sin lograr que las palabras se convirtieran en imágenes o que las desgracias de los personajes me provocaran empatía. Me forcé tanto a seguir leyendo que me provoqué un bloqueo lector —es por eso que he estado sacando y poniendo libros de la estantería "leyendo"—, y el resultado siempre era el mismo. Me daba igual lo que pasara en cada historia. Si salvo alguna, quizá, es Carne, un relato sobre el fanatismo. In Argentina, one woman lights herself on fire. Hundreds follow. Together they create a new kind of beauty. Our Lady of the Quarry’: A chorus of girls look on jealously as their most ‘grown-up’ (but, in their opinion, least attractive) friend starts a relationship with their collective crush. I wasn’t sold on this narrative device when it popped up in Things We Lost (in the story ‘The Intoxicated Years’), but here it works perfectly, pulling the reader into the girls’ petty resentments and dreams of revenge. Rambla Triste’: If this wasn’t specifically about Barcelona, it would fit perfectly alongside the stories in Sam Thompson’s Communion Town. Alongside the narrator – an Argentinian woman visiting friends – we experience the city as a labyrinthine place with multiple personalities, teeming with strange figures who could be prophets, gods, or nobodies. ‘Rambla Triste’ is rich and intoxicating. I was transfixed by the plot (it tightens its grip on you steadily as it progresses) and loved the ending.While the actual events of the dictatorship are usually implicit rather than explicit, one story that does refer to these years is ‘The Inn’. This one sees two teenage girls playing a midnight prank in a hotel that used to be a police academy. Talk about the ghosts of the past is usually metaphorical, but when you start to hear banging on doors and the deafening sound of marching feet, it’s another matter entirely.

Things We Lost in the Fire: Stories a book by Mariana Things We Lost in the Fire: Stories a book by Mariana

Megan McDowell has previously featured three times in the five years of the International Booker Prize, in 2017 and 2019 and 2020 for translation of books by Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin. And the stories themselves have a similarly dark feel, but too many of them for my taste tipped into the “marvellous,” involving actual ghosts (such as the first story Angelita Unearthed from which the quote above comes), spirits and curses. Several are sexually explicit and others scatological - two stories both revolve around an incident where someone evacuates their bowels in the middle of the street. Enriquez, Mariana (2016-12-12). "Spiderweb". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X . Retrieved 2019-08-01. Claudia Puig (2007-10-19). "Del Toro, Berry anchor 'Things We Lost' ". USA Today . Retrieved 2007-10-27.

In the English this is marketed as the author’s “next collection”, after Things We Lost in the Fire (2017). However, as with Mouthful of Birds, the original was actually published earlier, with the 2017 collection taken from a 2016 original Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego. And from comments from GR friends who’ve read both, it sounds as if this is a less well developed work. Things We Lost in the Fire - Box Office Data, DVD Sales, Movie News, Cast Information". The Numbers . Retrieved 2012-11-06. Argentinian writer Mariana Enríquez’s first book to appear in English, translated by Megan McDowell, is gruesome, violent, upsetting – and bright with brilliance. The stories are filled with people experiencing bodily trauma, often self‑inflicted.

Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez review

Toward the very end of the novel, the "T word" slur was used ... a lot. The first time it happened, I felt my stomach drop. The second time I thought, "okay, at least it's over." After the fifth+ time, I was nauseated simply because I had been so wholly unprepared for its use. None of the cis reviewers I trusted mentioned its use and the other stories were not transphobic in the slightest. In fact, they explored complex social themes with a refreshing sense of relentlessness that made me feel safe reading this book as a Latinx trans reader. Many cis and Latinx folk will say "well it was a story about life on the street" to justice the violent use of transphobic slurs which is *say it with me* - transphobic. Szalai, Jennifer (2017-03-03). "Argentine Fiction". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-08-01. The supernatural elements are often coated in local superstitions of figures (for example Pomba Gira in “Our Lady of the Quarry” – a story of inter-girl rivalry, envy and revenge which turns on a figure said to be of Our Lady instead being of the Afro-Brazilian spirit, San La Muerte in “The Well” – a story of the witchcraft induced transfer of a curse)Yes, some of the stories missed the mark for me, others made me go “mmmm, what’s that supposed to be about?” but then there are some that just did not leave. My favorite were: I am rarely actually triggered by works simply because I go into them with my guard up. That was not the case with this book. I wanted to be sure to warn those of you who may also be harmed and humiliated by the author's choice of language. Reading that story filled me with a deep sense of shame, shame that was not mine to carry. Julita’s folks had disappeared. They were disappeared. They’d been disappeared. We didn’t really know the right way to say it. These spookily clear-eyed, elementally intense stories are the business. I find myself no more able to defend myself from their advances than Enriquez’s funny, brutal, bruised characters are able to defend themselves from life as it’s lived.”— Helen Oyeyemi