Behind the Gate

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).

Amparo Dávila was born in Mexico in 1928. She published several collections of short stories and for a short time worked as Alfonso Reye's secretary. In recent years a massive resurgence of interest has acknowledged her as one of Mexico's finest masters of the short story. Award the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 19977, she was honored with the Medalla Bellas Artes in 2015


Matthew Gleeson is a writer, translator, and co-editor of Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2010 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.


A former Mellon Public Scholar, Audrey Harris holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic languages and literatures from the University of California, Los Angeles.