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Cráite
Nine stories of body horror, isolation, buried histories, and people discovering that the familiar is often the most frightening thing of all.
From the author of Wax & Wane and Fleischerei comes Cráite, a collection of dark, visceral horror spanning the first five years of Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin's short fiction.
An East German crime-scene photographer discovers the putrid heart beating beneath a divided Berlin. An Irish farmer finds himself sewn into a skin he knows far too well. An American tourist goes looking for family history and discovers something that should have been left to rot.
Across nine stories, Ní Chiaragáin turns loneliness, memory, identity, intimacy, and the human body into sources of dread. Her characters are outsiders, obsessives, travelers, lovers, and lonely people searching for connection in places where something has already gone terribly wrong.
Moving from Ireland to Germany and beyond, Cráite blends body horror, psychological horror, the grotesque, and dark literary fiction into stories concerned as much with what people carry inside themselves as with the monsters waiting outside.
For readers of visceral literary horror, strange short fiction, folk-inflected horror, and stories about transformation, alienation, decay, and the terrible things people discover when they go looking beneath the surface.
From the author of Wax & Wane and Fleischerei comes Cráite, a collection of dark, visceral horror spanning the first five years of Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin's short fiction.
An East German crime-scene photographer discovers the putrid heart beating beneath a divided Berlin. An Irish farmer finds himself sewn into a skin he knows far too well. An American tourist goes looking for family history and discovers something that should have been left to rot.
Across nine stories, Ní Chiaragáin turns loneliness, memory, identity, intimacy, and the human body into sources of dread. Her characters are outsiders, obsessives, travelers, lovers, and lonely people searching for connection in places where something has already gone terribly wrong.
Moving from Ireland to Germany and beyond, Cráite blends body horror, psychological horror, the grotesque, and dark literary fiction into stories concerned as much with what people carry inside themselves as with the monsters waiting outside.
For readers of visceral literary horror, strange short fiction, folk-inflected horror, and stories about transformation, alienation, decay, and the terrible things people discover when they go looking beneath the surface.
- GenresHorror
152 pages, Paperback
Published September 1, 2026
About the author
Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin
6 books22 followersSaoirse Ní Chiaragáin is a woman of ill repute. She resides in Berlin, Germany with her husband, daughter, and two cats.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 15, 2026
These stories feel like having a scab ripped off, or a tooth pulled, apt enough analogies given their interest in skin and bone and viscera. A couple hit especially hard as I deal with the reality of aging parents ("Murmurations") and as I see more and more of my father in myself as I get older ("Of the Flesh, Of the Father"). Weird, harrowing, brutal and funny all at once.
September 19, 2026
“Wives swell with babies. Unwed girls and women house only demons.”
📚
Cráite by Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin is a superb collection of grisly short stories infused with horror, menace, death, and dark history. Shocking and chilling, disquieting and haunting, eerie and horrifying, it’s an unputdownable, gothic-steeped read that, though small in size (literally: I love Filthy Loot’s trademark petite tomes!), packs a wallop, topped off with gorgeous, marvelously macabre cover art.
Easily an all-time favorite for this reader and, to give you an idea of how significant this is, I often struggle with short stories and don’t read many as a result, but I tore through this in one sitting and likely would have turned feral had I been disturbed!
Favorites:
•“Phytophthora”
•“Geisterbahnhof”
•“Teufelsberg”
•“You Have to Invite It In”
📚
Cráite by Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin is a superb collection of grisly short stories infused with horror, menace, death, and dark history. Shocking and chilling, disquieting and haunting, eerie and horrifying, it’s an unputdownable, gothic-steeped read that, though small in size (literally: I love Filthy Loot’s trademark petite tomes!), packs a wallop, topped off with gorgeous, marvelously macabre cover art.
Easily an all-time favorite for this reader and, to give you an idea of how significant this is, I often struggle with short stories and don’t read many as a result, but I tore through this in one sitting and likely would have turned feral had I been disturbed!
Favorites:
•“Phytophthora”
•“Geisterbahnhof”
•“Teufelsberg”
•“You Have to Invite It In”
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews