This is Enriquez’s first book translated to English, but she has a long publication history; much of her previous short story work has also employed the tools of horror, though often in more intimate or personal settings. Things We Lost in the Fire is her work that most employs the tools of realism, and also the one that most mines Argentine culture and history for its horror. As Enriquez has said herself, the stories here have something of the supernatural to them, but the fear comes more from police, neighborhoods, poverty, violence, and men. “The Intoxicated Years,” for example, delves into the period of alfonsinísmo. Raúl Alfonsín was democratically elected when the dicatorship ended in 1983; the period of his government, though, had its own kind of terror. People were depressed and isolated, literally in the dark, the atmosphere charged with anxiety. There are few to no supernatural elements in the story, but the horror is there—a horror specific to being an adolescent in a particular political moment, but also a more animal fear that comes from living in a world that has seemingly forgotten you.
Mariana Enriquez’s particular genius catches us off guard by how quickly we can slip from the familiar into a new and unknown horror. The wraiths of Argentina’s violent past appear in her stories, but ultimately Enriquez’s literature is not tied to any time or place. Rather, it appeals to ancient, creeping fears that prowl our subconscious, and that, in the worst of times, are acted out on our political stage.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARIANA ENRIQUEZ is a writer and editor based in Buenos Aires, where she contributes both fiction and nonfiction to a number of newspapers and literary journals.
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Things We Lost in the Fire Page 18
