Tierra fresca de su tumba

by Giovanna Rivero

Distantes y conectados como hojas de un mismo árbol, estos poderosos nuevos cuentos de Giovanna Rivero se instalan en las intersecciones entre la ternura y lo macabro, la fantasía y lo desconocido, lo real y lo posible. Duele y libera la historia de Elise, la joven menonita capaz de enterrar el secreto indigno, ese que la ha obligado a abandonar el territorio absoluto de la infancia. Resplandece la duda ante la voz mesurada de un náufrago que vuelve a tierra firme para contar el relato de quien no pudo volver. Se detiene la respiración frente al delicado arte con que cultivan su amistad la señora Keiko y la tímida estudiante de literatura. El amor, el delirio y la muerte se desatan en una vacación familiar en Santa Cruz. Nadine canta los evangelios para mantener a raya la enfermedad mental. En las estepas, una mujer se arrepiente de alentar a su esposo a ganar dinero como laboratorio vivo de un nuevo medicamento. Cuerpos heridos, violentados, en mutación. En Tierra fresca de su tumba asistimos a las transformaciones de seres enfrentados a lo incierto, a la vibración irresistible de eso que está siempre un poco más allá.

“Rivero recrea paisajes a partir de pequeños detalles, un movimiento de elipsis que sabe detenerse en la brizna para hablar del bosque. Hay en estos cuentos un registro poético que deslumbra. Pequeños latigazos del lenguaje. Un ruido de fondo que va por detrás, una belleza difícil de explicar.”
Eugenia Almeida

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Bolivia, Fiction, Gothic, Literary Fiction, Contemporary

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

Entre sus libros destacan Niños y detectives (2009, finalista de los Premios Cálamo 2010), Para comerte mejor (Premio Dante Alighieri), 98 segundos sin sombra (Premio Audiobook Narration: Best Spanish Voiceover por la Society of Voice and Sciences-USA), novela que ha sido llevada al cine por el director Juan Pablo Richter. Premio nacional de Cuento Franz Tamayo por Dueños de la arena (2005). Fue seleccionada por la Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara como uno de "Los 25 Secretos Literarios Mejor Guardados de América Latina" (2011). Premio internacional de Cuento "Cosecha Eñe" (España 2015). Fue residente del Iowa Writing Program (2004) y de Escritores en residencia (Alcalá de Henares, 2009). Es doctora en literatura hispanoamericana por la University of Florida. Junto a Magela Baudoin, dirige el sello Mantis, que publica narrativa escrita por mujeres.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Only people with debts to pay must fear that final encounter with death.’

Harrowing tales of violence, vengeance and fraught family histories creep across the pages of Giovanna Rivero’s Fresh Dirt from the Grave. A celebrated and successful writer in Bolivia, this new translation from Isabel Adey brings her powerful work to English-speaking readers and I am so thankful for the recent rise in interest for translations of modern Latin-American gothic literature as this is an excellent, unsettling and rather crisp collection of stories. Short in length with only six stories, each bruises the reader in a quick succession of pummeling stories that rise in intensity as they often slither towards a piece of previously undisclosed information that cracks open the horrors of being alive and centers us on the struggles to survive them. All but one story is set in Bolivia, but offers an insight into the multitudes of peoples who live there, such as the Mennonites from Canada who settled in Bolivia or a woman who grew up in a pocket of Japanese immigrants and now teaches origami at a women’s prison. Gritty yet told in gorgeous prose, Fresh Dirt From the Grave is a disquieting collection of tales that show how a sudden disruption can accumulate suffering with far-reaching tentacles of trauma.

‘Because it had all been just that: a disruption.’

While some of the stories can be fairly distressing with uncomfortable themes, Rivero’s writing is so luminously gorgeous. Even in the dreary descriptions, such as the ocean being ‘just watery vomit with nothing on the horizon, a giant emerald back full of evil and beauty. It was a miserable place,’ and the landscapes always ‘teeming with evil and beauty.’ We frequently see the two as inseparable, as ‘one and the same fold. Darkness and light,’ and for all the horrors inflicted we see the will to survive as a light shining in all the darkness. These stories are not unlike the ‘perfection of the coral snake created by that inmate’ we find in It Looks Human When it Rains which the origami instructor, Keiko, describes as ‘a baby dragon on the brink of stirring from its inanimate nature, and it looked as if it had been made with tweezers. But it had been born from those rough, criminal hand’: these stories are build out of the rough, gritty traumas of life but in Rivero’s hands they come out as beautiful and intricately detailed.

The characters in these stories are often fighting to not be washed away by the world. They are the regular person, the victims to those in power and capital, the lives that are trying to not be pushed off the edge of existence without anyone even noticing. They recall the unsettling voice a couple in Kindred Deer, now living in New York near the Finger Lakes, hear within the static of the Bolivian news station they turn on to hear about home:

‘Those voices, those beloved accents arrive muffled by the interference from the bad weather. ‘They’re killing us,’ someone sobs in an interview. I fidget in my seat. I want to know more about the desperate ‘us’ that reveals itself in that broken voice.’

These are quiet voices hoping to be heard in the static of it all. And several of these stories have inspiration in true events. The opening tale, Blessed are the Meek is a tale of revenge inspired by the horrific sexual assaults in a Bolivian-Mennonite community in Manitoba Colony (this same incident, women being gassed and then assaulted, inspired the novel Women Talking by Miriam Toews and the film adaptation of it). This story starts the collection with a real punch to the gut (but a darkly satisfying conclusion), showing how although the daughter had been assaulted and wronged, she and her family were forced to flee and feel the shame in order to protect the men in charge, to ‘cleanse the wound with silence.’ She is even gaslit to believe it was her fault for allowing the Devil in through her supposed weakness and is misremembering her attackers face because ‘the Devil plays these tricks in the imagination when the imagination rebels, and it also makes us submit,’ and is causing further harm to the community by ‘falsely’ accusing a man of something that was ‘clearly’ just the Devil she invited in.

The following tale, Fish, Turtle, Vulture was inspired by the survival story of José Salvador Alvarenga, who was lost at sea for 438 days, and, like in Rivero’s version that adds a potentially sinister twist near the end, conversed with with his deceased crewmate, Ezequiel Córdoba, for several days after he had passed. Many details in this story come from Salvador Alvarenga’s life, such as the crewmate's mother and her tortillas or asking the dead companion what death is like. But even the stories not directly tied to a notable event ring true in the ways we can be terrorized in life, such as the lengthy confession of life in Donkey Skin from a person who wants their story told before they forget it and have it lost due to their medical problems, or the aunt with serious mental health issues that assails a family (with plenty of skeletons in their closet) in Socorro.

Several times we see the devils deal of trading health and physical safety for frail financial stability, such as selling blood in Donkey Skin or the more extreme trade-off in Kindred Deer where the husband’s health is severely hindered in order to profit from experimental medical trials. In this same story, Rivero looks at how this can occur on a national level in times of conflict, with what are usually the poor sacrificing their lives for the prosperity of those in power.

‘I suppose as far as this culture of medals and nationalism is concerned, going to war is enough to turn you into a hero, and even more so if you return home ground to dust in a sealed casket decorated with the colours of the flag.’

In most of these, the true trauma creeps up like a twist, such as when Kieko’s garden work with her college-aged room renter dredges up painful memories of a surprise love-child from her husband they were forced to take in and the confrontation of accepting what happened to her.

Fresh Dirt from the Grave can test your nerves and take your mind to dark places, but it is ultimately a rather gorgeously written collection on the will to survive in all the darkness. While the narrative techniques don’t vary much and it can seem a bit repetitive by the end, it is still a hard hitting book. Short but lasting in its intensity, Rivero is an author I really hope to see be more widely translated so I can enjoy more of her work.

3.5/5

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another fine entry from Charco Press, Isabel Adey's translation of the collection Tierra fresca de su tumba by Giovanna Rivero. Tierra fresca is a set of six short stories, mostly set in Rivero's native Bolivia. Rivero has been situated with a growing number of Latin American writers using horror as a way to explore a range of political themes. I was pleasantly surprised that this collection is not entirely in that mode, a more varied set of subjects and themes than similarly-billed collections. When discussing this with people, I described these stories as "textbook", which was a compliment at a story level but only partially so about the bundle as a whole. The stories are of standard short story length and seem to follow a similar arc, propelled by a key piece of information withheld until the end. Rivero has certainly mastered that type of story, although six in a row left me wishing for more variety on that front.

[inciminci · Rating 4 out of 5]

Among all the gory, crazy, striking, shattering horror I have been reading lately, it was a calm kind of pleasure to read Bolivian author Giovanna Rivero’s quiet horror stories, first time translated into English for us to enjoy.

Particularly impressive is Rivero’s range; each of the six stories featured here convincingly present a different point of view, a different linguistic style, a different tone, environment and context. So much so, that you might be fooled into thinking they have been written by different Bolivian authors. Maybe this praise should also be addressed to translator Isabel Adey as well, since these stories feel like they were written like this, natural.

A story about oppressive and physically abusive church members and an opposing indigenous lifestyle, Blessed are the Meek, opens up this collection, followed by Fish, Turtle, Vulture, the account of the last moments of a ship captain by his partner who was on the ship he died and of stifling redemption. I particularly enjoyed It Looks Human When it Rains, in which an origami teacher from Colonia Okinawa, a city built in Bolivia for the immigrants from Okinawa after WWII, who starts working in a prison teaching the incarcerated her art, all the while tries to keep her plants alive in cold weather – the latter being a struggle I know all too well. Painful, mysterious, eerie family secrets and stories resurface in Soccoro, Donkey Skin, and Kindred Deer, always giving off a very own, original flavor.

I’ll certainly re-read this small but strong collection.

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 estrellas.
Los cuentos de Rivero son sórdidos. Nos presenta a personajes que se encuentran al margen de su comunidad o, más bien, repensando su relación con ella. Todos sus personajes son migrantes: se ven obligados (o deciden) dejar su lugar de origen y repensar su relación con él.
En el primero encontramos a una chica menonita que ha sido víctima de violación y se nos narran las consecuencias que este hecho desencadena: su revictimización y posterior éxodo. En otro de los relatos encontramos a una mujer japonesa que emigró con su familia a Bolivia, una historia preciosa llena de nostalgia pero también de de folklore japonés. Tenemos también a unos chicos huérfanos cuya tía alcohólica lleva a vivir con ella a Canadá; en su búsqueda de comunidad, el hermano traba amistad con unos chicos indígenas metis, mientras que la hermana encuentra confort en poder cantar y usar su voz. Otro de los relatos nos confronta con una mujer que "escapa" de su familia en Bolivia, construye una familia propia en EEUU, pero cuando vuelve a visitar, su tía con un trastorno mental, pone en evidencia que no es fácil cortar los lazos con el pasado. Finalmente, nos encontramos con una pareja de profesionistas que han dejado Bolivia para hacer posgrados en EEUU. La precariedad de su vida obliga al chico a participar en experimentos médicos a cambio de un pago. Ambos están convencidos de que vendrá un futuro mejor para ambos, pero ¿a qué precio?
Una buena colección, si bien no está cargada hacia el terror sin duda estos cuentos tienen un elemento perturbador que me hicieron disfrutarlos bastante.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The worst month to start a childhood from scratch on the prairies, beneath the soft sob of the snowflakes.

El peor mes para recomenzar una infancia en las estepas, bajo el llanto suave de los copos.

Over to you ChatGPT, or Ava as you suggested I call you:

"Fresh Dirt From the Grave, the latest release from Charco Press, is a collection of six short stories by award-winning Ecuadorian author Giovanna Rivero. Rivero has published several books of poetry and fiction, exploring themes related to gender, race, and violence. She has received numerous literary awards and was named as one of the "100 Most Influential Women in Ecuador" by the country's government in 2018. Her writing style has been described as part of the "New Latin American Gothic" movement, and she is happy for her work to be considered in dialogue with authors such as Mariana Enríquez and Mónica Ojeda, although she is reluctant to be limited by genre labels.

Translated by Isabel Adey from the original 2021 novel Tierra fresca de su tumba, Fresh Dirt From the Grave marks the 42nd novel published by Charco Press, all of which I have read and reviewed.

The stories in Fresh Dirt From the Grave explore themes of violence, trauma, and the macabre, with the first story, "Blessed Are The Meek," drawing inspiration from the horrific ghost rapes that occurred in the Bolivian Mennonite community in the mid-2000s. The novelist Miriam Toews also portrayed these crimes in her 2018 novel Women Talking.

Rivero's latest work has been praised for its powerful storytelling and evocative prose, taking readers on a journey through the dark and often disturbing aspects of human experience. Through her writing, she offers insights into the complexities of trauma, memory, and resilience, giving voice to the struggles and triumphs of marginalized communities in Latin America."

Thanks and back to my views:

This is an eclectic collection varied in style and content:

As Ada notes, the first story (19pp) is based on the gas facilitated rapes in the Bolivian Mennonite community, and is a revenge story told from the perspective of one of the victims who decides to literally bury the past sins committed against her.

The second, Fish. Turtle, Vulture (21pp) is also based on a real story, that of Salvador Alvarenga who survived over 400 days lost at sea, part of it with a younger less experienced crewmate who did not survive. The two men made a pact that if either was the sole survivor, they would visit the other parents, a pledge Alvarenga fulfilled. In this story, with the names and some of the details changed, Rivero imagines the visit, with the bereaved mother ominously determined to discover the truth of what happened.

The third, It Looks Human When It Rains (26pp) begins with the epigraph of a haiku, and starts with a very different, poetic, flavour, told from the perspective of Keiko, an older woman from the wave of Japanese agricultural workers who moved to the country in the 1950s, and who teaches origami to the local prisoners. But gradually her memories of her daughter, and another child she and her husband, who she always refers to distantly as Mr Sugiyama, fostered, possibly a love child of his, blend with her thoughts on her lodger, also of part Japanese descent, and hidden thoughts surface as to what happened to the second child.

Keiko squints: Emma is now that little girl from all those years ago, the one who knocked at their door, not the house door, but the entrance to the restaurant. The woman who has brought her here, Braulia, gives her a gentle push. The little girl says she's looking for Mr Sugiyama. Her cinnamon skin, belies her Asian eyes.

Sorocco (25pp) I found the most opaque story. It is told in the first person by a clinical psychologist, returning from the US to Bolivia to visit her mother and her aunt, her mother's sister. The aunt, Sorocco, in the narrator's view has psychological issues, and although her narration seems to analyse this medically the terms she uses ("deranged", "madwoman", "unhinged" all appear on the first page) implies there is more emotion involved in her diagnosis than she allows, and the aunt's barbed remarks suggest a dark family secret that the narrator has kept from her husband.

Donkey Skin (41pp) is presented as a speech given by a gospel choir singer in a church in Buffalo, who is about to undergo a serious operation for a tumour close to her pineal gland. This is intended to be her testimony and a commendation to their prayers, but ends up as a rather involved life history, starting with her and her brother being orphaned in Bolivia and then moving to a remote part of Canada, close to a Métis community, with their alcholic French aunt.

I shared this long testimony with you all today, before operation, memory, and in case the laser incinerates my my ernory, to thank you for the years of gospel music. The ifiirst thing this generous song taught me was to breathe, to turn oxygen into nourishment. And that breath was where the Lord worked his miracle. The doctors say that by inhaling with my stomach and exhaling into those songs of praise, I was able to systematically inhibit the growth of the malignant mass and protect the incredibly delicate area that surrounds the pineal gland. If not, I would have died years ago, without the chance to show you who I am today, the person I mightn't have become if my parents hadn't died in the Yungas, or if my aunt hadn't sought the oblivion of alcohol because she was weighed down by all those memories of Paris, or if I hadn't walked beside Dani to the annual buffalo festival. Thanks to gospel music, I experienced the ecstasy, 'the major lift' that Leonard Cohen celebrates in his beautiful hymn. Thanks to gospel music, I discovered that I carry the spirit of that she-bear in my brain, right here between my two hemispheres; it's the she-bear who sings and who roars when I stand up and project my voice. It's Ayotchow the bear, not me. Forgive me, Preacher Jeremy, forgive me, brothers and sisters. It's the she-bear. It's Ayotchow. Remember this when you're writing up my medical case for the science journal that wanted it. Remember, please, that my real name is Ayotchow, the she-bear of the gospel.

Kindred Deer (17pp) verges on the Todorovian fantastic in style with the narrator's husband taking part in a strange medical trial, for money, with odd side effects, while she communes with the body of a dead deer.

Overall, a collection that showcases the author's versatility and range, and with perhaps a little less of a dark edge than the advance publicity had let me to expect, one which makes me look forward to the publisher and translator bringing one of the author's novels into English: which is a deliberately double-edged compliment. 3.5 stars.

[Bri Little · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes yes yes yes!!!
Finally, a 5-star collection of short stories!! Giovanna Rivero knows her way around a sentence. Her writing is eviscerating, vivid. Madness, intrinsic animal nature, earthly sins and sorrow. The stories reveal themselves in such an engaging way that it was so hard to put this book down. Each story is disturbing in its own way, had its teeth in me the whole time.
I would love to read more from this author.

[Emejota (Juli) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cuentos inquietantes que presentan cierto desafío. Son para prestarles atención porque en los detalles está parte del disfrute. Giovanna Rivero escribe muy lindo acerca de cosas que no lo son tanto.

En cada cuento hay algo oculto, algo no dicho. Un secreto por revelarse. Algo no está bien desde el inicio y la tensión va creciendo. Se puede sentir el peligro acechando ante la posibilidad del descubrimiento.

*La mansedumbre
*Cuando llueve parece humano
*Socorro
*Piel de asno

[Literatura y libertad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfecto

[Mark Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Bolivian born Rivero's fifth release, a collection of six heavy and bleak short stories.

In 'Blessed are the Meek', a father avenges his daughter's abuser in horrific (yet satisfying) ways.

'Fish, Turtle, Vulture' is about calculated revenge. It's unnerving and precise, as a man who survived a shipwreck explains what occurred to a suspicious mother whose son also perished on board. 

'Socorro' is a tale confronting the devastation of mental illness, while 'Donkey Skin' explores sexuality, the power of religious music, and repentance in a world of violence and aggression.

Rivero's stories are touched with darkness. Raw and unapologetic, confronting themes such as madness, sexual abuse, violence, revenge, and the debauched side of human behaviour.

Really enjoying Charco Press's portfolio of Latin American female writers. Definitely recommend.

[Aída Rodríguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Sintetizar todas las hybris de las emociones". Esta frase de "Hermano ciervo", el cuento que cierra 'Tierra fresca de su tumba', resume la poética de Rivero en esta colección de relatos que tienen en común la evasión y la confrontación de las historias personales de una joven abusada, que eventualmente siente alivio por la aparente justicia que reciben ella y su vaca; madres que reviven el pasado o que elucubran sobre el futuro; hermanos perdidos y encontrados en las estrellas, etc.

Los relatos transitan entre la realidad terrible a la que se enfrentan todos y cada uno de los personajes de este cuentario y su imaginación o su sola voz que da testimonio de lo que significa, por ejemplo, ser una huérfana que perdió la vista por no ser atendida a tiempo, padecer un hambre infinita durante un naufragio, la metamorfosis del marido de una cajera, sujeto de un experimento, para poder pagar sus deudas, aquí de nuevo etc.

Estructuralmente hablando, "Cuando llueve parece humano", es un experimento en donde la forma sigue al fondo. Cada etapa de la vida de señora Keiko es una especie de doblez de una grulla o una serpiente de origami. Los puntos en donde el papel fue doblado se vuelven a encontrar durante todo el relato.

Si bien es cierto que nada puede aliviar o compensar a los personajes de estos cuentos, basta con leer el final de "La mansedumbre" o "Pez, tortuga, buitre" para compartir el sentido de "justicia" (o cierre) en microcosmos en donde ni dios ni los hombres quieren o pueden tomar agencia.

[chantel nouseforaname · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giovanna Rivero takes you on a journey with some of these stories, some of them were eerie and all of them were provocative. This was a very intense read. There was so much loud, capitalistic, all consuming violence talking to quietly devastating, much quieter, interpersonal violence. All the stories were both terrifying but also required you to feel some empathy and confusion along with your rage. I enjoyed the gothic feel of it all.

Some of my favourites stories in the collection, slapped so hard on varying levels —

Fish, Turtle, Vulture. The poor mother in that story had her own plan to take back what was taken from her, and it was a great reminder that you may be able to make it out of a compromising scenario intact, however that doesn’t leave you free when explaining to others what happened to the people left behind so you could live a life. Conceptually, that was a very layered and super dope story.

I also really liked Kindred Deer, it was my second fave. The woman and her husband trading their health, love and everything else for some funds to pay their debts, that was a wild ride.. it was painful and I think that that story had a lot of meaning and correlation to the current state of the world and folks who are consciously being scammed to the point of death by large corporate entities (#FreeLuigi), or whom are engaging in harm to themselves to make a way because they have no other options, are boxed in by their circumstances, and so they’re doing craziness just to get by.

Overall, it was a good read.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Described as where contemporary horrors and ancient terrors meet, these short stories by Bolivian author Giovanna Rivero are not my usual fare, but this book was part of my Charco subscription and it's August,#WIT month, so I decided to read them and see what the boundaries of the Gothic really means.

There are six stories and the first few were tales of macabre revenge that made me remember reading Yoko Ogawa's excellent collection Revenge. Overall an interesting, dark collection that brings out a quiet consideration in each of the protagonists as they grapple with their challenging situations and must either make a decision or give in to one made by an other.

blessed are the meek

a young woman violated, everyone around her seems to be denying the gravity of it, the family moves away, until the opportunity arrives to bury their grief, literally...

fish, turtle, vulture

a man survives 100 days at sea, his young companion not. Now he is meeting the mother of that young boy, she feeds him tortillas...atoning for his loss, he will atone for hers

it looks human when it rains

a Japanese widow in Bolivia teaches origami to women prisoners in a jail, is curious about these so-called murderers, until she teaches them how to make a snake - and sees something terrifying. Her own past comes back to haunt her, a young woman lodger helps her in the garden, things that were buried resurface in her mind, in her life.

Socorro

"Those boy's aren't your husbands" says a deranged Aunt in the opening lines. A woman, her husband and twin boys visit her mother and Aunt. She is an expert in mental health but being around her Aunt unsettles her in ways that her professional self finds hard to deal with. The moments of lucidity among the madness, reach in to her own hidden aspect and threaten to overwhelm her.

Donkey Skin

Two children orphaned overnight are sent to live with their French Aunt in Winnipeg, Canada. When they get to 17 they plan an escape, and their world gets turned upside down again.

Kindred Deer
Intelligent but struggling financially students sign up for medical trials that promise to cover their debts, but at what price. They ignore the corpse of a dead animal outside their window, leaving it longer than they should to address. Like the strange mark on his back that shouldn't be there, have they left that too late as well, will he pay with his life?

[Meli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una prosa preciosa y muy poderosa. En general me gustaron mucho los relatos.

[Coos Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pronto la reseña.

[Adam Ferris · Rating 3 out of 5]

"And the fact is, incredible though it may seem, God grows weak in the city; He gets startled, withdraws into the murkiness of deeds."

For fans of the macabre, twisted tales of human morbidity and translated Latin American literature, you are going to get a kick or two or three in the short stories in Fresh Dirt from the Grave. The book opens with a story about revenge in the sweetest and gnarliest of ways. I know that sounds a bit strange, but if it resonates with you, you will be the ideal reader of these sordid situations. The second story is filled with similar tension as the opening scene in Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards. That kind of teasing tension is built up perfectly with Rivero's wonderful writing. Melding human morality, revenge and acceptance is oftentimes a gruesome process and Giovanna Rivero brings together the forces of contemporary horrors with our animalistic instincts.

"How would she know? There was no longer a way. Only light or darkness, one and the same fold. Darkness and light."

With varying narratives, Rivero's prose creates a somehow soothing tension. Using gentleness in even dealing with the ghastly stories about cannibalistic revenge, a widow teaching origami to murderers in a women's prison, recrimination and retaliation, poisonings and other casual cruelties, I couldn't help but want more of her writing after finishing each of these fables. Rivero blends the wounds of humans with their own redemption and aims.

"We must be wary of chance occurrences, coated in innocence. They're the delicate pieces of a puzzle whose whole only reveals itself after too many years have passed."

Charco Press is on a roll lately with this latest release from Bolivian author Giovanna Rivero and of course a wonderful translation by Isabel Adey and another lovely cover by Pablo Font. Latin America has some really amazing writers, especially female writers that Charco Press brings out into the spotlight to highlight the talent that the English-speaking world would never have the gift of reading if not for this great independent press. Along with my love Charco, I find that I am more and more attracted to short story collections than I was in my younger years, and books like Fresh Dirt from the Grave have reaffirmed why I enjoy them so much. The writing, the imagination, the taut tales the range of feelings opens me up to bite-sized bits of myself. Oh yeah, and of course some dark humour that I am always a fan of.

"You have to learn to be more patient. You have to weave time better, you have to respect it. Patience and respect. How will you be able to live without dying?"

"If you're going to fill your head with all that knowledge, at least learn how to fight the dogs for scraps if it comes to it."

"I'm a fish, I'm a turtle, I'm water, I'm the net, I'm a vulture, he sighs, and continues to chew."



"Hell burns with paradoxes."

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars!
'Blessed are the Meek' is a story about a small rural community plagued by the local pastor, a sexual deviant who assaults young girls. A young girl of a large family is suddenly pregnant, the church says she was assaulted by the devil. The family is asked to move away. The young girl's Father has a plan.
Content Warning: SA of a child and animal.
I enjoyed the storytelling--subject matter made me sick. Based on the true story of the sexual assault of Mennonite girls and women in the 2000s in Bolivia.

'Fish, Turtle, Vulture' is the story of a man who is eating a meal in the home of a woman. During this meal, the man is giving her an account of when he was lost at sea with her son. They went many, many days without food--her son died...she only has one question for this man while he eats her homemade tortillas.

‘It Looks Human When It Rains’ is about an elderly Japanese woman who teaches origami in a woman’s prison. Keiko, recently widowed, is struggling with the cold, her age, and the fact that the women she teaches are murderers who sometimes make beautiful origami. She is subletting an apartment upstairs to a woman named Emma.
I didn't care for this one.

'Socorro' is a story about a woman who brings her family to visit her mother and her mentally ill aunt. For some reason, this story mentions the aunt's breasts and breastmilk several times. And then the ending was just like...what? I don't know. I didn't care for this one either.

'Donkey Skin' is about a gospel singer at a Bolivian church confessing to the congregation just before she undergoes an operation, recounting her memories of the three years she spent in Canada as a teen with her Aunt and brother, Dani. Extremely sad.
"...to sing, to roar, to use my she-bear voice to shatter the air."
CW: rape, homophobia, hate crimes, trauma, violent assault

The last story, 'Kindred Deer' tells the story of a Bolivian couple living in the US. The husband makes money by subjecting his body to scientific experiments. He develops a strange mark on his body. For some reason, the couple seems infatuated with a dead deer on their property.

Themes of revenge, family secrets, death & dying (decay), mental illness, tragedy & trauma, a beautiful representation of Bolivian Gothic storytelling, even though I personally think some of the stories are a little long and run off into the weeds too much.
I will read this author again

[Ignacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo mejor de este libro, además de una atmósfera opresiva, es cómo sus seis relatos abren la puerta de su mundo interior compartido; inclemente, poblado por personajes desplazados de sus culturas de origen, alienados, enfrentados a un mundo agreste, acosados por su pasado y/o distintos abusos. Ya en el planteamiento del misterio detrás de cada situación, y su resolución, son más desiguales. Dos me han parecido magníficos: "La mansedumbre" y "Cuando llueve parece humano", brillante este último al explorar las tensiones entre arriago y desarraigo de los descendientes de emigrados japoneses a (en este caso) Bolivia. A la historia fantástica de realismo mágico le añade unas gotas de cuento japonés de fantasmas que encajan a la perfección con la propuesta. Otros, "Socorro" y "Piel de asno", se me han hecho particularmente largos. Manejan peor su tempo, la manera en que van cristalizando sus avances en un ambiente dominado por el pesimismo y la desesperanza.

[Mar García · Rating 3 out of 5]

Los relatos que más me han gustado han sido los dos primeros: La mansedumbre y Pez, tortuga, buitre. Los demás no han estado mal tampoco.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

A hit and miss collection

[Juan Carlos Gómez · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10
___
En «Tierra fresca de su tumba» Giovanna Rivero da excelente muestra de sus aptitudes como narradora, al tiempo que desbroza la oscuridad del interior de sus personajes. Surcando la fina línea entre el realismo y lo sobrenatural, confecciona una colección de relatos entre los que destaco «Socorro», «Piel de asno» y «La mansedumbre», por sus evocaciones y, sobretodo, por el logro de sobrecogerme cuando el fondo permanece en un estado de comunión absoluta con la forma.

[Maria Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

La reseña completa en http://inthenevernever.blogspot.com/2...

«La sangre de Joaquín también hace milagros. Éramos pobres y ya no lo somos. Estábamos al borde de declararnos en bancarrota y ya no lo estamos».

Si me siguen en redes sociales (especialmente en Instagram) ya me habrán leído recomendar a Las escritoras de Urras. Un proyecto de la escritora Maielis Gonzalez y la traductora Sofía Barker, dedicado a difundir el trabajo de autoras de fantasía, ciencia ficción y terror. Un podcast que cada quince días nos trae un nuevo relato en formato de radio ficción. Gracias precisamente a uno de sus episodios descubrí a la increíble escritora boliviana que hoy les quiero recomendar: Giovanna Rivero. Tierra fresca de su tumba, la colección de relatos publicada por la editorial Candaya, es un libro que deberían leer sin dudar.

[hope h. · Rating 4 out of 5]

a visceral and harrowing collection that is NOT AFRAID to dig into the body as a focus for horror. it's all about guts and meat and how we are just animals with greater capacity for cruelty - and i kind of loved it!! some of the stories were hit or miss, but it's worth reading just for the last two.

individual ratings:

blessed are the meek - 3.5/5
fish, turtle, vulture - 4/5
it looks human when it rains - 3/5
socorro - 3/5
donkey skin - 5/5
kindred deer - 5/5

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second collection by Rivero that I have read and, while Para comerte mejor dabbled in both sci-fi and horror, Tierra fresca de su tumba is all in on horror. And I am here for it.

These stories range in setting from New York to Bolivia to lost at sea, and the short story format leaves lots of space for your imagination to fill in gaps. La mansedumbre opens things on a really strong note, but not all the other stories leave you with the same sense of closure. Horror takes a variety of forms: the supernatural, the inhumanity of violence that people inflict on one another, the inhumanity of starvation, and the inhumanity of medical trials that take advantage of the desperate.

It's hard to pick a favorite--these are all really good, although I don't know they quite reach what I thought the heights of Para comerte mejor were. Probably opener La mansedumbre, Piel de asno, and Hermano ciervo were my favorites. If I were to recommend one, probably La mansedumbre--it's more straightforward, it's strong, it grabs you. As food for thought, probably one of the other two.

These stories feel lean and mean (although some of them are fairly long for the genre), and I hope that people are taking note. Rivero should not remain one of "Latin America's undiscovered gems" or whatever she was called about ten years ago--she deserves some major acclaim.

Update: read this again, but in the English translation. Great new version, but I am sad that it doesn’t include “Hermano ciervo,” which is one of my favorites from the Spanish edition. Glad Rivero will be reaching the Anglo audience finally.

[endrju · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm rarely drawn to short story collections as the stories are usually uneven and oftentimes produce a feeling of disjointedness in me so much so that I have hard time focusing afterwards. That was definitely not the case with this one. While the stories are not linked (except by repetition of certain motifs, uneven irises for example), they do produce a sort of unity with the similar affect, style and themes that run through them. In that sense, the collection has a layered effect and by the last story I got to reflect on it as a whole and not just a random set of narratives. Additional star for attention paid to the non-human animals and especially for politics - white cishet men should indeed be sacrificed to Pachamama.

I definitely want more of Rivero's work. I can't tell if she's done a novel or not, but I'd love to read something lengthier than a short story written by her.

[G. Munckel · Rating 5 out of 5]

De lejos, lo mejor que leí de Rivero.
Cuentos sutiles en cuyo fondo anida el dolor pero también la belleza. En todos ellos hay muertos, y la tierra de sus tumbas sigue fresca.
Mi favorito, “Cuando llueve parece humano”, tiene el mismo cariño por el detalle y las plantas que los mejores cuentos de Hebe Uhart; es dulce y su final hermoso no deja de ser inquietante.

[Libros Prohibidos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Su narrativa es fresca, engañosamente mundana, la realidad se trastoca y se vuelve espeluznante sin necesidad de recurrir a la imaginería típica de la literatura de terror.

Reseña completa: https://www.libros-prohibidos.com/tie...

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Around the World Reading Challenge: BOLIVIA
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4.25 stars

I thought this was an excellent collection overall, with some really interesting themes and some beautiful writing.

Blessed are the Meek: 5 stars
Really enjoyed this one. A young girl is raped by a leader in the church. Interspersed with her interrogation by church leaders and her isolated confinement while pregnant. Ends with her father and a native acquaintance burying the dude alive after he won't apologize

Fish, turtle, vulture: 5 stars
Haunting story of a man who survived a shipwreck at sea for 400 days, with a young crewmate that died on day 100. Memories interspersed with conversations with his dead crewmate's mother. Another great twist at the end with a poisoned tortilla.

It looks human when it rains: 3.5 stars
Japanese Bolivian immigrant thinks back on her life. Has a tenant about her daughter's age that reminds her husband's illegitimate child that died by a snake bite and she buried in their yard. Sort of mystical vibe of "is this that girl" that was interesting at the end, but was slow to start.

Socorro: 4 stars
Woman visits her mom and mentally ill aunt in Bolivia with her husband and twin sons. Aunt makes comments that the twins looks just like her dead son who hung himself. Complicated relationships. Some lovely writing and lines.

Donkey Skin: 3.5 stars
Older religious woman who sings gospel about to have surgery recounts her childhood as an orphan raised by a drunk aunt in Canadian wilderness, and the hard things she witnessed happening to the members of the indigenous community her and her gay brother befriended. Interesting and well written, but brutal.

Kindred Deer: 4 stars
Broke couple does odd jobs for money, including the husband undergoing a very intense medical trial for a super drug that is causing him to waste away and he can't be exposed to sunlight, or sire children. Starts to experience a spreading bruise on his back, and has to be readmitted. Wife struggles with guilt and the idea of death. Interesting concept.

[adelina gabriela · Rating 3 out of 5]

#89 bolivia

3.5*
so twisted (+) and confusing (-)

[Lauli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Los seis cuentos que componen esta antología son poderosos y devastadores. Uno no emerge de ellos indemne. Como el título lo indica, Rivero lidia con la muerte: esa muerte que es siempre reciente, siempre dolorosa, porque se reedita mil veces en los sueños, en la carne, en la memoria. Sobre todo en la culpa, que es un hilo conductor que parece atravesar todos los relatos. Culpa por obra u omisión, o la simple culpa de haber sobrevivido en lugar de otros.
La prosa de Rivero es bellísima y descarnada, y logra llegar directo a la yugular. Me fue imposible terminar un cuento y comenzar otro enseguida porque me dejaban en tal estado de tensión que necesitaba ventilarme un poco antes de volver a entrar en su mundo. Qué prodigiosas autoras están surgiendo por toda Latinoamérica. Qué voces potentes y maravillosas. Y qué versiones sublimes del gótico, que ha encontrado una renovada edad de oro en este siglo tan convulsionado.
Les dejo un detalle de mis tres cuentos favoritos, pero háganse un favor en intérnense en toda esta antología porque no tiene desperdicio.
🕳 LA MANSEDUMBRE: Basado en hechos reales, refiere a una serie de violaciones ocurridas en el seno de una comunidad menonita de Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Elise, una de las víctimas, y su padre Walter deciden comenzar otra vida apartados de la comunidad. Pero puede que Walter no esté tan resignado como parece.
⛵️ PEZ, TORTUGA, BUITRE: Un naufragio, un sobreviviente, y una visita de cortesía a la familia del compañero muerto que tiene consecuencias impensadas.
💊 SOCORRO: Hay que visitar a mamá y a la tía Socorro, aunque esta última esté loca y medicada y delire todo el tiempo. ¿O acaso es verdad que la locura es poder ver más allá?

[Enrique Mendoza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uno de los libros de cuentos que más me agradó. La delgada línea entre lo real y la ficción, es tratada por la autora de una forma excelente. Me encantó el cuento de los menonitas y "Socorro". Excelente Narrativa que acompaña armoniosamente el tiempo de la historia. Además quiero ponderar la edición que llegó a mis manos de Editorial El Cuervo, que me pareció muy buena y pulcra.