My Sad Dead by Mariana Enriquez

Mariana Enriquez has done something remarkable in this story, totally in line with the fabulist tradition in Latin American literature. She has created a second-order community of ghosts for this poor, benighted region. The social despair of the place manifests itself in ectoplasm.

Abracadabra

“You’ve got to see this,” Sullivan tells me as he unwraps the newsprint from his latest treasure, an unremarkable dessert plate he picked up at the thrift store this afternoon.

Where God Put Us Down – Novel Excerpt

The thatched roof villages belonged more to the days of Tokugawa feudalism than to those of the twentieth century. So did the people living in them. Indeed, they seemed like creatures from some far away place lost in the stream of time.