Casa Tomada

[1] It was originally published in Los anales de Buenos Aires, a literary magazine edited by Jorge Luis Borges, and later included in his volume of stories Bestiario.

The true nature of the entities is left largely undecided and open to different interpretations that vary depending on the generic conventions one attributes to the story (e.g. fantasy, psychological fiction, magic realism, etc.).

The writer based the house on one located in the city of Chivilcoy in the Province of Buenos Aires, which can still be found in the streets Suipacha and Necochea.

Each has faced difficulties in their adult lives, the narrator having lost his fiancée long ago, and the sister (Irene) having denied two suitors who sought her hand in marriage.

Usually, their home is silent, but when one day the narrator suddenly hears something inside another part of the house, the siblings escape to a smaller section, locked behind a solid oak door.

Illustration for "Casa Tomada" by Norah Borges