Latin American Gothic
If Gothic fiction, in general, is characterized by an appeal to negative emotional responses triggered by confrontation with alterity, the narrative transculturation exercised in its Latin American variety doubles the stakes by rendering both foreign and local elements alien.
[3][4] Bombal's novel, narrated first-person by a dead woman in her coffin and touching on themes such as abortion and issues of power and submission, was a major influence on Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo (1955), which, in addition to being a precursor of magic realism, can also be credited with having helped to pave the way for the regional development of the Gothic.
[6][7] Ecuadorian writer Mónica Ojeda rose to prominence thanks to the critical acclaim she received for her third novel Jawbone (2018), which follows the story of a horror-obsessed teenage girl who is kidnapped by her literature teacher and was shortlisted, in translation by Sarah Booker, for the 2022 National Book Award.
Ojeda's 2020 short story collection Las voladoras—which includes Caninos, previously published in 2017—explores themes such as gender violence, abortion, incest, child abuse, sexuality, and religion through the lens of what she defines as "Andean Gothic".
Her work has begun to gain international recognition since the publication of her book of short stories Fresh Dirt from the Grave (2021), which moves between horror and science fiction and expands the boundaries of the Gothic to engage with pre-Columbian ritual and folk tales.
[10] Michelle Roche Rodríguez's novel Malasangre, about a young girl from a Catholic and conservative family who becomes a blood-sucking monster in 1920s Caracas, was shortlisted for the 2021 Celsius literary award, which recognises the best works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror written in Spanish.
In the 1980s, Colombian filmmakers Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina, members of the so-called "Cali group" or "Caliwood", coined the expression "Tropical Gothic" to refer to the aesthetics of their films, which feature monstrous narratives set against a backdrop of sunlight, warm climates, and an abundance of natural resources.
[13] According to scholars Justin D. Edwards and Sandra Guardini Vasconcelos, the Tropics are fertile ground for the Gothic due to its history of violence and transculturation that involves both the myths that were brought to the region by the European settlers and haunt it under the guise of its colonial past, and an older belief system that is constantly in the process of being unearthed, acknowledged, and remembered in awe and wonder.
[13] Mayolo directed the films Bloody Flesh (1983), a tale of incest and cannibalistic undead creatures set during the military dictatorship of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, and La mansión de Araucaima (1986), based on the novella by Álvaro Mutis about a mysterious house that keeps a group of people trapped by their own fears and repressed desires.
On television, the miniseries Santa Evita (2022), inspired by the novel of the same name by Tomás Eloy Martínez (1995), offers a fictionalised account of the fate of the embalmed corpse of Eva Perón framed in a phantasmagorical atmosphere and bordering on the supernatural.
