Behind the Gate

Amparo Dávila

Each of these stories is equal parts Hitchcock film and razor blade: austere, immaculately crafted, profoundly unsettling, and capable of cutting you. Amparo Dávila is Kafka by way of Ogawa, Aira by way of Carrington, Cortazár by way of Somers, and I’m so grateful she’s in translation.

Carmen Maria Machado

A sensationally creepy new selection of stories from the author of the cult phenomenon The Houseguest

Available Oct 06, 2026

Behind the Gate

Fiction by Amparo Dávila

Translated from Spanish by Audrey Harris and Matthew Gleeson

Written in sharp, impressionistic prose steeped in horror, Amparo Dávila’s stories are tiny nightmares come to life. She is a writer obsessed with obsession, who shows, sometimes in just a few pages, that the narrow line between sanity and madness is even finer than it had seemed at first glance, and that anyone could be one false move away from their doom. Gothic, dark, surrealist, atmospheric, this newly translated selection from the author of the global sensation The Houseguest “casts a delightful and disconcerting spell” (Los Angeles Times).

Paperback

published: Oct 06, 2026

ISBN:
9780811240581
Price U.S.:
15.95
Trim Size:
5.19x8
Page Count:
128

Ebook

ISBN:
9780811240598
Portrait of Amparo Dávila

Amparo Dávila

Mexican short story writer

Each of these stories is equal parts Hitchcock film and razor blade: austere, immaculately crafted, profoundly unsettling, and capable of cutting you. Amparo Dávila is Kafka by way of Ogawa, Aira by way of Carrington, Cortazár by way of Somers, and I’m so grateful she’s in translation.

Carmen Maria Machado