Las casas que arden

Description

The supernatural, whether in film or literature, appears where reality runs out of images or words. It emerges to help us express everything about ourselves that we are otherwise unable to articulate. The seven stories that make up The Houses That Burn present characters facing a rupture in their ordinary world: we could almost say that each story offers a different variation of the fantastic, a unique and vibrant way of telling how the marvelous lingers around us, lying in wait until we find the courage to look.

With the precision that defines the best short fiction, and supported by bold premises, these seven stories are fantastic in the double sense of the term—and as incendiary as their title suggests. At the same time, they are character studies told with deep honesty and with the conviction that, in order to achieve something luminous, a high price must be paid to darkness. The protagonists who pass through these pages must learn to negotiate with their deepest contradictions and fears while awaiting a revelation that will not be pleasant, but will transform them radically. Because one can survive a house that burns, but never emerge unscathed.

J. A. Bayona