The Houseguest - Amparo Davila

The Houseguest and Other Stories by Amparo Dávila, translated by Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson / ISBN 9780811228213 / 144-page paperback from New Directions

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The first collection in English of an endlessly surprising, master storyteller

"Mexico’s high priestess of horror. The world Dávila imagines weighs on the brain like some sort of delirium." ― Robert Rea, Southwest Review

Like those of Kafka, Poe, Leonora Carrington, or Shirley Jackson, Amparo Dávila’s stories are terrifying, mesmerizing, and expertly crafted―you’ll finish each one gasping for air. With acute psychological insight, Dávila follows her characters to the limits of desire, paranoia, insomnia, and fear. She is a writer obsessed with obsession, who makes nightmares come to life through the everyday: loneliness sinks in easily like a razor-sharp knife, some sort of evil lurks in every shadow, delusion takes the form of strange and very real creatures. After reading The Houseguest―Dávila’s debut collection in English―you’ll wonder how this secret was kept for so long.