The horror genre in literature is more relevant than ever: Alberto Chimal

▲ Cover image of the volume containing 27 stories by Latin American writers. Photo courtesy of Elefanta Editorial.

Omar González Morales

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, July 25, 2025, p. 4

The book Heads in the Window: An Anthology of Latin American Horror (Elefanta Editorial) is a recent compilation of unpublished texts by Spanish-speaking authors that demonstrates that the horror genre is more relevant than ever , says Toluca writer Alberto Chimal, who collaborated on this anthology.

In an interview with La Jornada, the author explains the importance of this narrative genre, a dark spectrum of perceptions of horror from countries that share similar contexts. Editor Emiliano Becerril undertook the enormous task of contacting us as authors; it's a very complete and rich overview of horror literature in Latin America, very important because it includes works by writers from island countries we rarely see, whose contributions, of course, greatly help explore new universes , explains Chimal.

Among the writers participating in this edition are Mariana Enriquez (Argentina), Elaine Vilar Madruga (Cuba), Verena Cavalcante (Brazil), Hank T. Cohen (Colombia), Gabriela Damián Miravete (Mexico), Isis Aquino (Dominican Republic), Solange Rodríguez Pappe (Ecuador) and Pabsi Livmar (Puerto Rico), among others.

The volume, comprised of 27 stories, offers a wide variety of horror stories that not only remain within the paranormal spectrum, but also touch on aspects of violence, body horror, techno-horror, haunted houses, lineage, and even economics.

"I thought it was a great idea to have storytellers from countries whose literature we don't often see contribute their vision of horror and the universe. "We shouldn't focus on the same countries and the same visions, but rather open our perceptions to the unsettling aspects of all possible societies ," the writer says.

William is the short story Alberto Chimal contributed to this collection. In the story, the protagonist, Memo, immerses himself in social media and decides to take on the persona of a drone. Little by little, he becomes alienated from his identity and begins to plot revenge against society.

“The story came to me after thinking about confinement during the COVID pandemic. Our understanding was filtered by the internet and its pernicious influences. I based it on real characters—from the European and American far right—who dissociated themselves: they commit massacres, issue manifestos, and go crazy with traditionalist discourses. I adapted it to technological concepts and the Latin American context,” explains the author.

He adds: “For me, the most worrying thing is that it only takes enough time for a person to be connected to a distorted source of information, such as toxic masculinity influencers or politically alienated individuals, to detonate, depersonalize, and become brutal, and there we have them.

This is an era in which oligarchic powers, which control a large part of the internet, spread a lot of aggressive discourse. It's a problem we're seeing develop today. Today we can see it on social networks like X, with its artificial intelligence. It seems to me to be conclusive proof that these technological tools can only be as beneficial or as harmful as those who control them , the storyteller reflected.

The new terror

Chimal asserts that the return of the horror genre goes hand in hand with the social difficulties to which Latin American people have had to adapt and respond.

“In this region, we've shaken off the disdain to talk about what scares us. At one point, it was thought that horror, along with other literary movements, was a kind of 'foreign product' that, when translated, we 'coated' with our language. Today, we can say that much of the advancement of this genre is taking place in our contexts, not as countries, but as cultures.

There's more courage among authors to publish. New writers face overcoming editors' skepticism; in this regard, young publishers like Elefanta are leading the way , he explains.

Alberto Chimal asserts that this evolution of Latin American horror is also due to a change in readers, who are becoming more sophisticated, exposed to more contexts and influences, and sharing more possibilities and variables of the imagination. This has sparked a lot of enthusiasm .

For better or worse, we will never stop being afraid, as individuals or as societies. It's a human capacity that is part of our survival instinct, even our reflexive instinct. In this anthology, we can see that our Latin American context has bequeathed us ancestral terrors, but also modern and contemporary ones. "This region is indistinguishable from any other region in the world ," he concludes.