Las voladoras
​Mónica Ojeda

Photo credit: Sergio Cadierno

Drawing from Ecuadorian folklore, oral storytelling traditions, and Inca mythology, Mónica Ojeda delivers a short fiction debut that is as discerning as it is visceral, a hair-raising and deft collection that expands the possibilities of contemporary Latin American Gothic literature.

Unfolding in the mountains, volcanoes, and shrubland of the Andes, the stories in Las voladoras meticulously probe into the unspeakable and genuinely horrific: In the circular “Sangre coagulada,” the orphaned Ranita – a young girl harboring a fascination with blood – is sent to live with her grandmother, an old woman whom locals suspect to be a witch, while noise musician Bárbara fantasizes about cutting off her twin sister’s tongue during an underground music festival in the story “Slasher.” Others turn to the mystic to interpret the corporeally jarring, as is the case in the book’s title story, which employs the symbolism of Ecuadorian legends to articulate a young woman’s coming of age, and in “Cabeza voladora,” where a college lecturer who is still reeling after discovering her teenage neighbor’s severed head becomes increasingly drawn to a cult of women who secretly convene at the scene of the crime.

Grappling with themes such as femicide, perversion, death and grief, incest, mutilation, and the occult, many of the tales found in Las voladoras are guaranteed to unsettle. But it is in these stories’ vulnerable explorations of violence and desire – in the unraveling of the characters’ morbid curiosities and futile hopes and starved compulsions – that the heart of Ojeda’s collection has its seat. Its consideration of humanity’s worst is shocking not because it is implausible, but because it is honest. Therein lies its true horror.

Mónica Ojeda is a writer from Guayaquil, Ecuador. She has authored various critically acclaimed books, including the novels Nefando (2016) and Mandíbula (2018), as well as the poetry collection Historia de la leche (2019). Ojeda lives in Madrid, where she is working on her PhD in Latin American porno-erotic literature.

Las voladoras is a publication by Editorial Páginas de Espuma. Click here to purchase.
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Reviewed by
Isabella Pilotta Gois
​2/16/2020

Isabella Pilotta Gois is a Venezuelan writer and recent graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied Comparative Literature. She currently resides in Puerto Rico.

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