In one of the stories in The Houseguest, a woman’s bedchamber becomes a prison each night, but we don’t find out what happens there in another, a man sits in the stairwell of his apartment building and devotes himself to suffering, though we never know why. Dávila has an ingenious way of setting up an eerie premise and then withholding something crucial from the reader. Though never prolific, she eventually won almost every major award in Mexico, and in 2015 the country’s first prize for fantastical fiction was named after her. Viewed in this light, the world teems with demons of the kind Dávila writes about-there’s nothing unrealistic about them.īorn in 1928 in the Zacatecas region, Dávila moved to Mexico City in 1954 and became the secretary and protégée of the prominent writer Alfonso Reyes. I find myself waking up at night worrying, strategizing useless things I could do, and I’m possessed by dark thoughts.

These conditions sometimes feel to me like evil spirits, loosed by social chaos, and they are all the more disturbing because of the ways they trick their hosts into participating with them. Reading The Houseguest, a sampling of her work translated into English by Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson, my thoughts turned toward several people I love who are suffering from alcohol dependency, depression, or other mental health afflictions worsened by the isolation and unemployment caused by COVID-19.

The Mexican writer Amparo Dávila (1928–2020) is known for uncanny, nightmarish short stories full of strange visitations and sudden violence.

The houseguest by amparo davila