Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave - by Mariana Enriquez (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Originally published in Spain as Alguien camina sobre tu tumba by Anagrama in Barcelona, Spain in 2021."--Title page verso.

Book Synopsis

An enchanting, highly personal tour of some of the most iconic cemeteries of the world--part travelogue, part memoir, part "excursions through death," by the author of Our Share of Night and "queen of horror" (Los Angeles Times)

"Not a travelogue so much as a grave-a-logue, Somebody is Walking on Your Grave is an exuberant, witty wander among the dead. You could not have a better friend to take you by the hand and lead you for a long traipse among tilting tombstones, dank crypts, and chilling history."--Joe Hill

"Enriquez knows cemeteries are the repositories of life's pain and beauty. I felt more alive as I read."--Caitlin Doughty, New York Times bestselling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

"A perfect book for almost anyone."--The Washington Post

"An immersive testament to [Enriquez's] genius."--Los Angeles Times

"An eccentric and enlightening peek into how memorialization happens across the world."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Fascinating . . . Enriquez hides a celebration of life in a book about death."--Booklist, starred review

A TIME BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR - One of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 New Releases of the Fall - A Most Anticipated Book of the Fall: Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Literary Hub, Ms. Magazine, Bustle, Book Riot, Publishers Lunch

Cemeteries have great stories and sometimes I steal some for my books.

Mariana Enriquez--called by The New York Times a "sorceress of horror"--has been fascinated by the haunting beauty of cemeteries since she was a teenager. She has visited them frequently, a goth flaneur taking notes on her aesthetic obsession as she walks among the headstones, "where dying seems much more interesting than being alive."

But when the body of a friend's mother who was disappeared during Argentina's military dictatorship was found in a common grave, Enriquez began to examine more deeply the complex meanings of cemeteries and where our bodies come to rest.

In this rich book of essays--"excursions through death," she calls them--Enriquez travels through North and South America, Europe and Australia, visiting Paris's catacombs, Prague's Old Jewish Cemetery, New Orleans's aboveground mausoleums, Buenos Aires's opulent Recoleta, and more. Enriquez investigates each cemetery's history and architecture, its saints and ghosts, its caretakers and visitors, and, of course, its dead.

Weaving personal stories with reportage, interviews, myths, hauntology, and more, Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave is memoir channeled through Enriquez's passion for cemeteries, revealing as much about her own life and unique sensibility as the graveyards and tombstones she tours. Fascinating, spooky, and unlike anything else, Enriquez's first work of nonfiction, translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, is as original and memorable as the stories and novels for which she's become so beloved and admired.

Review Quotes

"It's no surprise that cemeteries hold a special personal fascination for the writer. The surprise, rather, may be that this collection of essays about her visits to graveyards all over the world is less about death than life, and the varieties--and the emotional imperative--of somehow marking its passing."--NPR

"Like A Field Guide to Getting Lost for sickos and goths."--Orange Country Register

"Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave finds the great Argentine horror writer (Our Share of Night) mixing memoir and legend for a global survey of cemeteries."--Chicago Tribune

"In her reflective, pitch-perfect collection of linked essays, Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave, the great Argentine writer Mariana Enriquez guides us through 21 of the world's distinctive cemeteries. . . . each chapter's a banger, rendered in a luminous translation by Megan McDowell. . . . Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave is an immersive testament to her genius."--Los Angeles Times

"This addicting travelogue of extremely readable prose, translated by Megan McDowell, tangles past and present like ivy climbing a stone headstone, offering fascinating cultural and historical tidbits . . . alongside life philosophies from a woman healthily obsessed with death."--Bustle

"Mariana Enriquez documents her years of visiting graveyards across the world with infectious enthusiasm, in her first work of non-fiction translated into English."--Financial Times

"A deliciously eerie journey that makes you want to pack a black umbrella and see the world's graveyards for yourself."--Conde Nast Traveler

"A fun travelogue that's also part memoir, and taphophiles will love it."--The Washington Blade

"In the brilliantly written Somebody is Walking on Your Grave, it's easy to share Enriquez's sense of wonder and delight as she visits some of the world's most unforgettable cemeteries. Traveling with Enriquez in this enlightening, funny, and at times poignant book is like taking an adventure with your most interesting friend. I devoured every page."--Greg Melville, author of Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries

"A triumph of curiosity! Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave is one of those marvels that shows how dark, joyful, and mesmerizing the world is when the brave go looking. I'm a longtime fan of Mariana Enriquez, and this book delivers everything (and more) that I love about her writing."--Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrilio

"Not a travelogue so much as a grave-a-logue, Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave is an exuberant, witty wander among the dead. You could not have a better friend to take you by the hand and lead you for a long traipse among tilting tombstones, dank crypts, and chilling history."--Joe Hill

"Enriquez knows cemeteries are the repositories of life's pain and beauty. I felt more alive as I read."--Caitlin Doughty, New York Times bestselling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory

"I cannot think of a better guide through not exactly the realm of the beyond--but rather, the all-too-real spaces where we, the living, must confront the inevitability of 'that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.'"--Literary Hub

"Quietly, hypnotically amusing."--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Mariana Enriquez is a writer based in Buenos Aires. She has published in English the novel Our Share of Night and three story collections, A Sunny Place for Shady People, Things We Lost in the Fire, and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which was a finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction.

Megan McDowell has translated many of the most important Latin American writers working today. Her translations have won numerous prizes, including the National Book Award, and have been nominated for the International Booker Prize four times. She is from Richmond, Kentucky, and lives in Barcelona, Spain.