In these wildly imaginative, devilishly daring tales of the macabre, internationally bestselling author Mariana Enriquez brings contemporary Argentina to vibrant life as a place where shocking inequality, violence, and corruption are the law of the land, while military dictatorship and legions of desaparecidos loom large in the collective memory. In these stories, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and Julio Cortázar, three young friends distract themselves with drugs and pain in the midst a government-enforced blackout; a girl with nothing to lose steps into an abandoned house and never comes back out; to protest a viral form of domestic violence, a group of women set themselves on fire.

But alongside the black magic and disturbing disappearances, these stories are fueled by compassion for the frightened and the lost, ultimately bringing these characters—mothers and daughters, husbands and wives—into a surprisingly familiar reality. Written in hypnotic prose that gives grace to the grotesque, Things We Lost in the Fire is a powerful exploration of what happens when our darkest desires are left to roam unchecked, and signals the arrival of an astonishing and necessary voice in contemporary fiction.

瑪裏亞娜‧安立奎茲（Mariana Enriquez）

1973生於布宜諾斯艾利斯。她是記者，《12頁日報》（Página/12）雷達文化副刊副主編，也投身教育。她曾齣版的小說有《墮落最糟糕》（Bajar es lo peor, 1995），《如何人間蒸發》（Cómo desaparecer completamente, 2004），故事集有《床上抽菸的危險》（Los peligros de fumar en la cama, 2009），《當我們跟死者對話》（Cuando hablábamos con los muertos, 2013），短篇小說有《迴頭的孩子》（Chicos que vuelven, 2010），旅遊文學有《有人踩在你的墳堆上》（Alguien camina sobre tu tumba），《我的墓園之行》（Mis viajes a cementerios, 2013），以及人物側寫《妹妹》（La hermana menor），《西爾維拉‧奧坎波之像》（Un retrato de Silvina Ocampo, 2014）。

她的作品贏得一緻掌聲：「作者擁有我們阿根廷人特別是對科塔薩爾認同的特色，甚至可以說有過之而無不及：挖掘日常生活墮落和醜惡的一麵，這一道裂縫滲透瞭非理性，在這裡，人們屈服在他們的邪惡和按捺不住的慾望。」（阿根廷記者兼作傢貝亞翠絲‧沙爾羅［Beatriz Sarlo］）。「以奇絕筆法，再一次重現某些民間習俗，我們稱為這樣敏捷思緒為自我目光。能與讀者分享這樣的目光，是值得歡慶的一件事。」（阿根廷詩人安德烈斯‧紐曼［Andrés Neuman］）。

《跳火堆》將在二十個國傢陸續齣版。