Special Issue of Alambique on the New Latin American Gothic
Due Date: 06-15-2025
In recent years, a growing body of Latin American literature has drawn on Gothic traditions to explore the continent’s harsh realities. As realism and autofiction have proven insufficient, these works engage with experiences of “bare life” shaped by neoliberalism, drug trafficking, public health crises, and the rise of various populist movements. One aspect that sets the New Latin American Gothic (nuevo gótico latinoamericano) apart is the prominence of women writers— Mariana Enríquez (Argentina), Rita Indiana (Dominican Republic), Giovanna Rivero (Bolivia), Mónica Ojeda (Ecuador), Claudia Hernández (El Salvador), Ana Paula Maia (Brazil), Fernanda Trías (Uruguay), Silvia Moreno-García (Mexico/Canada), Michelle Roche Rodríguez (Venezuela), Alia Trabucco (Chile), among many others on a list longer than thirty names—who have turned to horror and the supernatural as tools for social critique. Through these genres, their work confronts the fractured and precarious nature of life in communities subjected to systemic violence, the normalization of intentional death, the expansion of informal economies, and waves of mass migration.
Historically, speculative fiction in Latin America, especially the fantastic, has sometimes been dismissed as frivolous, bourgeois, or detached from real-world concerns. In a literary landscape shaped by social and political struggles, realism has long been viewed as the most legitimate mode of storytelling. However, the rise of the New Latin American Gothic challenges this notion. By reworking Gothic tropes, contemporary authors engage with urgent social issues in ways that realism alone cannot. This wave of literature is redefining the role of the fantastic—not as an escape from reality but as a means of exposing its darkest truths.
Submission Guidelines:
Alambique invites abstracts for articles exploring the New Latin American Gothic from a variety of perspectives, in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. Possible topics include
• Can we talk about a new Latin American Gothic? Is it primarily a feminine movement?
• The historical roots of Gothic literature in Latin America
• Comparisons with European and American Gothic traditions
• Connections to other speculative genres
• Recurring themes and social concerns
• Narrative techniques and stylistic innovations
• The role of gender, race, nationality, and regional identities in these works
• Particular author(s) and work(s)
Abstracts (max. 250 words) and short bios (max. 50 words) should be submitted to Antonio Cardentey (Georgia Tech) at alevin9@gatech.edu by 15 June 2025. Authors whose abstracts are accepted will be asked to submit full articles (5,000–10,000 words) for double-blind peer review by 15 September 2025.