Samanta

Samanta Schweblin is one of a generation of South American female writers whose willingness to experiment with language, content and form has made them some of the most interesting and necessarily provocative voices in literature today (other names include Fernanda Melchor, Maria Gainza, Ariana Harwicz and Pola Oloixarac). While their predominantly male forebears staked out the territory of magic realism, these newer writers have arguably shown themselves to be even more innovative, utilising elements of autofiction,…

Argentinian writer Samanta Schweblin is perhaps best known for her novel Fever Dream, adapted for Netflix in 2021, but her short stories are equally celebrated. Her latest collection (published in Spanish in 2015 and meticulously translated by Megan McDowell) focuses on the domestic in disarray.The most striking of the seven tales, Breath from the Depths, is also the longest. Lola is sick and her memory is failing: “she wanted to die, but every morning, inevitably, she woke up again”. Her ordered existence – facilitated…