As Argentinian horror writer Mariana Enríquez puts it,

“Writing horror from Latin America involves incorporating our fears.” Drawing from folklore, oral tradition, and real-life horrors, contemporary Latina writers like Enríquez are transforming the genre, offering powerful commentary on colonialism, capitalism, inequality, gender violence, autonomy, and more. If you’re a fan of horror, you’ll want to add these books to your reading list.

In honor of Latinx Heritage Month and Halloween, here are a few haunting reads to get your spook on.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado 
Campfire ghost stories meet body horror in this genre—and totally mind—bending short story collection by National Book Award finalist Carmen Maria Machado. Her Body and Other Parties blends horror, fantasy, comedy, and science fiction in eight unsettling stories about sensuality, queerness, and bodily autonomy, including one sixty-page novella, “Especially Heinous,” in which Machado recounts 272 episodes of Law and Order: SVU. My favorite story is “The Husband Stitch,” Machado’s Nebula-nominated story about a woman who resists her husband’s attempts to remove the green ribbon from around her neck (and when she does let him him untie it. . . well, I’ll let you be equally as shocked as her husband when you get to it).

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
I would be remiss if I didn’t include at least one book by Mexican Canadian writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Her feminist horror novel Mexican Gothic follows Noemí Taboada, an ambitious socialite from Mexico City who dons glamorous 1950s gowns and longs to study anthropology at university. After receiving a disturbing letter from her newlywed cousin Catalina—who claims that her husband is trying to kill her—Noemí rushes to High Place, the remote English manor where Catalina now lives with her in-laws. Upon her arrival, Noemí must confront the evil that festers inside High Place’s walls and under its floorboards.

Moreno-Garcia has all the gothic tropes down to a T in this book: a mansion that reeks so strongly of rot and decay it’s a wonder it’s still standing, a sinister and oppressive husband, and, of course, a gloomy graveyard and plenty of ghosts. Moreno-Garcia stays true to the genre, but she also wields it as a vehicle to examine the real-life horrors of colonialism and white supremacy.

If you enjoy Mexican Gothic, I suggest checking out Moreno-Garcia’s vampire neo-noir, Certain Dark Things.

EAT THE MOUTH THAT FEEDS YOU by Carribean Fragoza
Carribean Fragoza’s debut collection of short stories, which centers Latinx, Chicanx, and immigrant experiences, motherhood and family, and the violent legacy of colonialism, lands somewhere between the real and the surreal. In one story, a daughter eats her own mother—flesh, blood, marrow, and all. In another, an aggrieved mother obsessively takes an ax to logs, furniture, and a once-beloved, but now barren lime tree (the seeds “lovingly smuggled” from her homeland of Mexico). These stories—poignant, magical, and often horrifying—will stick with you long after you read them.

Plus, a few from my TBR list:

• Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez
• The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
• Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
• Witches by Brenda Lozano
• Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin

Blog written by Isabel Lemus-Kristensen.