Our Share of Night

I loved every single page of this fucking massive book and its heartfelt embracing of all things occult and strange. Mariana Enriquez approaches magical realism in the same way that Toni Morrison does: with a completely straight face. No winking from the sidelines, no nudging reminders that we're experiencing the ‘other', or that everything may not be as it seems. This is quite simply reality: blood soaked, ceremonial, and dark, dark, dark, not quite separate from our own but just a little out of step, like viewing a Magic Eye picture of the exact moment of your death. Her spiralling narrative is unbelievably deft, and requires your trust in a way that I've never encountered in fiction before, almost as if you're required to give something of yourself over to Enriquez in exchange for prose. If you're lucky you'll get it back.

Reminiscent of the visceral horror of Poppy Z. Brite, with the scope and scale of Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing. Keeping everything crossed that more of her work is translated into English sooner rather than later.