Horror novels function as a way of controlling our fears and the unknown, transforming it into something tangible and… temporary. There’s something comforting about picking up a book, feeling terrified and setting it back down, the fear always contained in the pages.
During Covid, while some people turned to baking, I sought out Latina writers from across the Americas who are bringing on a new renaissance in dark thrillers in both familiar and innovative ways.
Inspired by these disturbing works, I ventured to write my own horror novel rooted in fashion: Tiny Threads. In the industrial city of Vernon California, Samara Martín will do anything to excel at her new job at the legendary House of Mota, including ignoring the increasingly disturbing apparitions “welcoming” her to her new home.
It’s an exciting time to be writing in this genre especially with these authors leading the way. There’s a no-holds-bar to the way they tackle capitalism, patriarchy, and the unrepentant violence of colonialism. It’s also the perfect time to read horror as the news keeps pouring in with increasing bleakness. These books can offer a relief from our current reality with a surprising, exorcism-like, quality. Instead of the usual suspects (the Stephen Kings and the Shirley Jacksons), expand your literary repertoire and read these scary and boundary-pushing works of terror by Latina writers around the world:
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes
Longlisted for the National Book Award, Hurricane Season is a ruthlessly dark fairytale set in a poverty-ridden Mexican village with four unreliable narrators circling around a death. In the same school as Bolaños, Hurricane Season’s denseness is brutal, unforgiving, and full of rage, evoking the slow suffocation of each character.
Fever Dream: A Novel by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell
Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin is a master in unsettling the reader. Fever Dream is an eco-horror novel set where a child and a dying woman are in a room exchanging stories of how they came to be. What first begins as a child’s game with strange rules shifts into a terrifying examination of corporations poisoning whole swathes of people.
Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo
The first Puerto Rican to win a Bram Stoker award, author Cynthia Pelayo sets her horror in Chicago with two sisters who are tied to their historic family home even in the midst of strange noises and apparitions. The novel is part procedural story and part good old fashioned ghost story with Pelayo enlisting the city to bring forth the terror front and center.
Pink Slime: A Novel by Fernanda Trías, translated by Heather Cleary
Debut Uruguayan novelist Fernanda Trías delves into a near-future where poisonous air has contaminated the world while a corporation serves gross pink food to those who can afford it. Navigating this ecological disaster is a woman tasked to take care of a child. Pink Slime shows what it looks like to be a caretaker at the end of days.
Mona: A Novel by Pola Oloixarac, translated by Adam Morris
If you want a novel that takes on the international book awards industry and spins it on its demonic head, then this is the novel for you. Writer Mona travels to Sweden for an award she’s nominated for and encounters surreal characters that become more and more disturbing all the while denying a dark secret hidden within her. Pola Oloixarac’s story gets weirder and darker with each chapter.
Jawbone by Monica Ojeda, translated by Sarah Booker
Ecuadorian writer Monica Ojeda novel incorporates terrifying youth driven pop culture horrors like creepypastas and the strange dynamic within childhood cliques. Set in an elite private school, best friends Fernanda and Annelise become increasingly more violent as their secret rituals take a life of its own. Are the privileged teenagers to blame for their brutality or is their mother-obsessed teacher Miss Clara who kidnaps one of them guilty?
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses
Cannibalism you say? Why not! Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica is not afraid to get gory in this dystopian novel. Similar to Pink Slime, Tender is the Flesh features a society in which a virus contaminates all meat and cannibalism is legal. Marco, a worker at a human slaughterhouse, questions his role when he becomes close to a specimen meant for consumption.