Fever Dream

Born in 1978, Samanta Schweblin is an Argentinian writer residing in Berlin. She is best known for the short story collections Mouthful of Birds (2019) and Seven Empty Houses (2022) and the novels Fever Dream and Little Eyes (2018). Her books have been published in more than 40 different languages, with all of her work in English translated by Megan McDowell. Schweblin has received numerous awards and international recognition for her writing, including being named one of the 22 best Spanish language writers under 35 by Granta magazine in 2010. The author is known for her unsettling stories that find horror in seemingly innocuous, everyday places. Schweblin’s novels are notable for their brevity, and her sparse, atmospheric prose leaves much unsaid.

Schweblin is part of a contemporary literary movement of female Latin American writers receiving much international recognition for their dark, unsettling, and even grotesque work. Writers like fellow Argentinians Mariana Enriquez, Ariana Harwicz, and Agustina Bazterrica, Mexican Fernanda Melchor, and Ecuadorian Mónica Ojeda use gothic and fantasy elements in their writing to address real-life horrors and social issues, including gender-based violence, class divisions, racism, and political unrest. Fever Dream is an excellent example of this genre as Schweblin uses horror novel tropes, including threatening landscapes, dead animals, and unsettling children, to explore the threat that rural Argentinian communities face at the hands of big agribusiness and toxic chemicals used for soy production.