It takes quite a lot to frighten the queen of Latin American gothic horror.
asserted
It → take → horror
Yet one night as Mariana Enriquez left her local cinema for the short walk home, she was terrified.
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she → leave → walk
She had made the move to Launceston from Buenos Aires only a few months earlier and was struggling to get used to the darkness of Australian suburbia at night.
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She → make → night
It also didn't help she had just seen the Australian horror film, Bring Her Back.
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she → help → Her
"This had never happened to me in my life," she told ABC News.
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she → happen → News
"I'm almost never scared of horror movies but I was … super terrified when it ended.
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it → end → movies
"Usually I walk back and that day I was so terrified, I walked one block, got out of the CBD [and there was] darkness ...
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I → walk → CBD
I called an Uber and told the guy ... 'I have a problem with my leg'."
In her Argentinian home city, darkness meant danger.
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darkness → call → danger
It was a hard lesson to unlearn at the age of 50, even in the quietude of northern Tasmania.
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It → unlearn → Tasmania
If there's a street where you don't have streetlights [in Argentina], it's because it's dangerous, it's abandoned.
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it → be → Argentina
You don't go there," she said.
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she → go → ?
"It's a lot of adjusting from being alert always … waiting for something that can come, not just from being unsafe but from other kinds of unsafeness.
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that → adjust → unsafeness
"In Argentina you are always… [watching] the news to see if there was some kind of economical disaster that is going to make you make decisions."
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you → watch → decisions
It was the economic precariousness of Argentina which eventually led to Enriquez and her husband moving to Australia around a year ago.
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Enriquez → lead → Australia
The change has meant she no longer has a relationship with "the immediacy of catastrophe".
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she → mean → catastrophe
"So it's a real reset for me," she said.
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she → say → me
In the shadow of a dictatorship
Nicknamed the "Argentinian Mary Shelley", Enriquez has had three collections of short stories and a novel translated into English, in addition to her non-fiction cemetery travelogue, Someone Is Walking On Your Grave.
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Someone → nickname → Grave
Enriquez was around two years old when Argentina entered its "big dictatorship" years in 1976, as she calls the country's seven years of military rule which saw the disappearance of around 30,000 people.
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which → enter → people
While democracy was eventually restored in 1983, the dictatorship cast a long shadow, even over those who were children at the time.
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who → restore → time
Enriquez recalled the micro levels of control over everyday life, dictating birthday parties and the number of people who came to your house.
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who → recall → house
Then there were the years where the full scale of the atrocities were broadcast, a time Enriquez says was in some ways "even more horrifying" than the years of military rule.
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Enriquez → be → rule
Children were not spared from the horror and the "gore" of this very public reckoning.
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Children → spar → reckoning
"My subjectivity was formed in that period …
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subjectivity → form → period
Your whole imagination is shaped by this very dark, political thing …
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imagination → shape → thing
There's an alert and an alarm that has to do with growing up like that.
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that → be → that
From a young age, Enriquez had aspirations to be a writer, a resolve that was only strengthened by the discovery such a profession could get you disappeared to one of the more than 500 clandestine prisons dotted around the country.
uncertain
profession → have → country
"Living through that period and getting out of that period gives people an attitude of never falling for that fear again and fighting back.
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Living → live → fear
It was 'They're never going to stop me.
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They → go → me
They're never going to silence me'.
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They → go → me
"
Enriquez is considered a leading voice in the New Argentine Narrative, a contemporary movement of predominantly women writers whose dark stories confront a collective past.
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stories → consider → past
But in the early days of her writing, Enriquez had some trepidation about how some Argentines would react to her drawing inspiration from that very recent history.
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her → have → history
"I was a bit anxious .. if they were going to understand that this was my language as a fiction writer and my way … of taking these issues that were very serious and important to me and very important to the history of our nation and talk about them," she said.
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she → go → them
Instead, they embraced her stories.
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they → embrace → stories
Alex Cothren, a lecturer in creative writing at Flinders University in Adelaide, who recently hosted Enriquez as a writer in residence, believed the creative lens of horror writing helped Argentines tackle "real deep traumas".
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Argentines → host → traumas
They've had [at least] three huge financial crises.
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They → have → crises
Every time the country takes one step forward, it takes two steps back," he said.
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he → take → step
"It's a generation of creatives that are trying to tackle these things but they don't want to do that through realism because people are living through it every day.
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people → try → it
"So they're doing it through the creative lens of horror which they all grew up from.
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they → do → which
During Enriquez's residency at Flinders University last month, she had given just one public talk.
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she → give → talk
The ticketed event quickly amassed a waiting list, something Mr Cothren attributed to news of her visit reaching Adelaide's Latin American community.
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news → ticket → community
…and 14 more, not listed.
The Aporia