Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys

(Paperback)

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Description

In Somebody is Walking on Your Grave, Mariana Enriquez blends journalistic rigour and her fascination with the macabre as we encounter famous graveyards steeped in history, such as Montparnasse in Paris, Highgate in London, and the Jewish cemetery in Prague, as well as more remote, decrepit, hidden, or secretly beautiful ones. These pages are full of the graves of famous figures - Elvis in Memphis, Karl Marx in London - mournful sculptures, traces of voodoo, catacombs, skeletons and an array of legends and stories. Mariana's personal journey weaves through haunting narratives, transforming burial grounds into spaces of reflection, obsession, and emotional discovery between the living and the dead.

From the haunting statues of Staglieno in Genoa to the eerie silence of Rottnest Island's hidden Aboriginal cemetery, Enriquez's narrative shifts effortlessly between travelogue, essay, and memoir. In her unique voice, cemeteries transform into living, breathing places of reflection, obsession and revelation. As she roams, each cemetery becomes a lens through which she examines everything from colonial violence to the strange rituals surrounding death.

Reviews

Enrquez, when she does just enough, is pretty much unbeatable -- A.K. Blakemore
Enriquez's talent and fearlessness is something to behold * Financial Times *
Enriquez's great gift that she can make stories with ugly subject matter so addictive and full of life * Observer *
One of Latin America's brightest stars * Telegraph *

Author Bio

Mariana Enriquez is an award-winning Argentine novelist and journalist, whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She is the author of Things We Lost in the Fire, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which was shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize, Our Share of Night, which was awarded the prestigious Premio Herralde de Novela, and A Sunny Place for Shady People.

Megan McDowell has translated Alejandro Zambra and Samanta Schweblin, among other writers. Her work has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.