Maldito corazón

by Gabriela Alemán

Esta colección de quince cuentos es sorprendente por su tema y lirismo. En sus dos secciones aparecen seres minimalistas y fantasmagóricos: dráculas suicidas y hombres lobos desgarrados por la voracidad del deseo. Estos cuentos, susceptibles de múltiples lecturas, están escritos sobre el débil trazo que separa el amor del espanto. Son el resultado de una extraña mezcla que se nutre de la fantasía y de una verdad, no exenta de ambigüedad, que involucra al lector a cada paso.

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Gabriela Alemán, a writer based in Quito, Ecuador, has played professional basketball in Switzerland and Paraguay and has worked as a waitress, administrator, translator, radio scriptwriter, and film studies professor. She received a PhD at Tulane University and holds an MA in Latin American literature from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. She received a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and was included in Bogota39, a 2007 selection of the most important up-and-coming writers in Latin America in the post-Boom generation. She was one of five finalists for the 2015 Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) for her story collection La muerte silba un blues and has won several prizes for critical essays on literature and film. Her other books include the short-story collections Maldito corazón, Zoom, Fuga permanente, and Álbum de familia; and the novels Body Time, Poso Wells, and Humo. Her stories have appeared in anthologies in French, English, Chinese, Hebrew, and Serbo-Croatian. Poso Wells is her first full-length work to appear in English.

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

I came to this having read Alemán more recent work. My favorite section is the last—I think this book ends on a series of very strong notes with the fantasy world-set stories (Werewolves, mermaids, etc.). Especially the werewolf story, where she brings that old world fantastic into late capitalism. Most of the stories are quite short, but we know from later work that Alemán can really spin a yarn, so I would have enjoyed further elaboration. But reading this 30 years later, I’m not at all surprised we are still talking about her work after several decades. Alemán definitely cleared some road that Rodríguez and Ojeda strode confidently down a few years later. Very worth your time, if you can find it.

[Gabriela]

Muy bueno :)