The pounding that woke her up was so loud she doubted it was real; it had to be a nightmare. It was making the house shake. The banging on the front door sounded like punches thrown by enormous hands, the hands of a beast, a giant’s fists. Claudia Puig (2007-10-19). "Del Toro, Berry anchor 'Things We Lost' ". USA Today . Retrieved 2007-10-27. Mariana Enríquez, el terror en lo cotidiano". 2017-04-29. Archived from the original on 2017-04-29 . Retrieved 2023-06-29. a b "Things We Lost in the Fire (2007) - Weekend Box Office". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved 2007-10-25. Several pieces show us just how hazardous life in the capital can be. In ‘The Dirty Kid’, a middle-class woman slumming it in a dangerous part of town encounters a boy living on the streets. When she comes home one day to find the police investigating a murder, she can’t help but wonder if he’s the victim, particularly as there’s no sign of him – or his drug-addict mother.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez | Goodreads The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez | Goodreads

The “propulsive and mesmerizing” ( The New York Times) story collection by the International Booker–shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed and Our Share of Night—now with a new short story. The effect is so immersive that the details begin to feel like the reader’s own nightmares. The stories here are not formally connected but together they create a sensibility as distinctive as that found in Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son or Daisy Johnson’s Fen. They are a portrait of a world in fragments, a mirrorball made of razor blades.

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Joe Morgenstern (2007-10-19). "Del Toro Rescues 'Things We Lost,' A Tale of Grief". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 2007-10-27. Enriquez, Mariana (2016-12-12). "Spiderweb". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X . Retrieved 2019-08-01.

Things We Lost in the Fire - Penguin Random House

Enriquez’s stories are historically aware and class-conscious, but her characters never avail themselves of sentimentalism or comfort. She’s after a truth more profound, and more disturbing, than whatever the strict dictates of realism allow….[P]ropulsive and mesmerizing, laced with vivid descriptions of the grotesque…and the darkest humor.” — New York Times Book Review Glenn Whipp (2007-10-19). " 'Fire' Draws its Heat from Del Toro". Los Angeles Daily News. Archived from the original on 2007-10-22 . Retrieved 2007-10-27. Szalai, Jennifer (2017-03-03). "Argentine Fiction". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-08-01. stars.

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There’s murder of a different kind on offer in ‘An Invocation of the Big-Eared Runt’. Here we follow a tour guide as he shows people around scenes of crime in the capital, and while there are a fair few to choose from, there’s one particular criminal who captures his interest more than most. Understandable, perhaps, but is it normal to see the murderer on his bus, getting closer to the front day by day? As the story progresses, we sense that an innocent obsession is on the verge of becoming something far more sinister. Violent and cool, told in voices so lucid they feel spoken.”— The Boston Globe (Best Books of the Year) Book Genre: Contemporary, Fiction, Gothic, Horror, Magical Realism, Short Stories, Spanish Literature

Things We Lost in the Fire’ by Mariana Enriquez (Review) ‘Things We Lost in the Fire’ by Mariana Enriquez (Review)

Disappearing in the context of the political history of Argentina is also integral to Enriquez’s particular Gothic. During the Dirty War of the 1970s and 1980s, it is estimated that between 9,000 and 30,000 people were ‘disappeared’ as part of the military dictatorship’s attempt to rid themselves of political dissidents. Many groups of people suffered from the violence, and their families still seek answers. The threat of the military state is aptly hinted towards in Spiderweb, with the appearance of three boisterous soldiers who harass a waitress, and a disturbing story later told about the military building dead bodies into a bridge. Thus when Juan Martín disappears as though he never existed, there is a sense that something underhand but totally normal has occurred, that the narrative itself swallowed him up without a need to explain.Rather than going after individual men, the burning women take on society as a whole. As it turns out, what we lose in the fire is our humanity… No quiero que me saquen las pesadillas" | Babelia | EL PAÍS". 2017-10-07. Archived from the original on 2017-10-07 . Retrieved 2023-06-29. Anything else you want to share with the group? Was there anything that surprised you or anything you learned? Mariana Enriquez is a writer and journalist based in Buenos Aires. She is the author of 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, and the novel Our Share of Night.

Things We Lost In The Fire - Macmillan Things We Lost In The Fire - Macmillan

Enriquez’s particular gift is to intuit that horror and ghost stories – ancient genres, as old as humanity itself – might make better gateways into a country’s past than straightforward narrative. Her ghosts are not conventional spectres, by any means; it is the people – homeless street children, groups of women with a collective history around burns – and the places that she writes about that are demon-haunted.” — Financial Times Trabajó como jurado en concursos literarios y dictó talleres de escritura en la Fundación Tomás Eloy Martínez Mariana Enriquez’s Things We Lost in the Fire (review copy courtesy of Portobello Books) is a collection of twelve excellent stories set in the writer’s home country. While Enriquez occasionally takes us outside Buenos Aires, with one piece set in the humid north and another in a holiday town on the coast, most unfold in the capital. In Enriquez’s hands, Buenos Aires becomes a pulsating, living entity, a place where people can be chewed up and spat out after any false step, with danger lurking around every corner. The “propulsive and mesmerizing” ( The New York Times Book Review) story collection by the International Booker-shortlisted author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

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Exploring in monstrous form the true crime genre and violence against women, Enriquez’s short story collection remains relevant in 2021.