A Sunny Place for Shady People

A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “one of Latin America’s most exciting authors” (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

“Horror has found its master.”—Joy Williams
“A collection of brilliant nightmares.”—Paul Tremblay
“First-rate literary horror.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall: Reactor, Publishers Weekly, Lit Hub

On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessed—all those birds were once women.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.

Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez’s stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez’s unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.”“A Sunny Place for Shady People reveals as much about ourselves as it does our ineffably strange, horrific world. Enriquez’s characters’ desperate, longing struggle for meaning and hope has never been so poignant and beautiful, nor so damned chilling. A collection of brilliant nightmares from one of our best.”—Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Cabin at the End of the World
 
“When you gaze into the abyss, Mariana Enriquez looks up to you from those depths, grins to herself, and then gives her attention back to the next story she’s pulling into the world.”—Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of My Heart Is a Chainsaw

“Nobody does horror quite like Enriquez, whose stories linger at the edges of your consciousness long after they’ve ended—perhaps because of how she always keeps her focus on the human heart of her tales.”—Literary Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2024

“Vivid and unnerving, these stories confirm Enriquez as one of Latin America’s most original imaginations.”—The Bookseller, Editor’s Choice

“A masterful collection . . . these provocative tales are first-rate literary horror.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Readers blown away by Enriquez’s Our Share of Night will welcome McDowell’s bravura translation of the author’s new collection of horror stories. Enriquez’s darkly humorous world view throbs throughout these weird and riveting tales, exerting the morbid fascination of a train wreck. . . . [These stories] are creepy enough to bring a shiver to every reader.”—Booklist, starred review

“Enriquez’s Our Share of Night earned her a prominent place among innovative South American writers, and the stories here deliver the same squelchy charms. . . . A dozen pitch-black Argentinean stories laced with body horror, self-incrimination, and existential dread . . . solidifies Enríquez’s reputation as a purveyor of haunting and thought-provoking tales.”—Kirkus ReviewsMariana Enriquez is a writer based in Buenos Aires. In English, she has published the novel Our Share of Night and two story collections, Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which was a finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction.

Megan McDowell has translated many of the most important Latin American writers working today. Her translations have won numerous prizes, including the National Book Award, and have been nominated for the International Booker Prize four times. She is from Richmond, Kentucky, and lives in Santiago, Chile.