Overview

THE VOICE OF BLOOD by Gabriela Rábago Palafox is a groundbreaking collection of short stories that intertwines themes of identity, desire, trauma, and transformation with a haunting gothic sensibility. The stories explore deeply personal and globally resonant themes, including gender-based violence, ecological precarity, social taboos, and marginalized identities. A pioneer in using literary horror to confront contemporary political and environmental crises, Rábago Palafox reimagines gothic traditions through a feminist lens-the vampire shows women as empowered rather than victimized. Her stories deftly balance the speculative, queer, and deeply human, offering readers a chilling yet thought-provoking exploration of societal anxieties, identity, and memory.

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9781597322249

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Reviews

-Alberto Chimal, author of Scary Story ""Before her untimely death, Gabriela Rábago Palafox was a trailblazer. Now she can be one again. Her stories illuminate the intersection of history, contemporary experiences and the uncanny, transforming the centuries-old tales of the vampire into new myths. This is a book of horror fiction as different as one can find to both the old classics and the newest paperbacks of the genre. From her views on earthly (patriarchal) power to her most chilling nightmares, Rabago's The Voice of Blood gives us something timeless."" -Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Mexican Gothic ""Gabriela Rábago Palafox's stories straddle the edge of the mundane and the bizarre. At times dreamlike and at others uncanny, The Voice of Blood is a macabre delight."" -Raquel Castro, author of Playlist ""Tragically, for decades, Gabriela Rábago Palafox was a secret writer, a cult figure whose books were nearly impossible to find and whose legend persisted in the darkest corners of Mexican literary culture. Much like her nocturnal creatures, however, Rábago Palafox is now returning to the land of the living. The Voice of Blood, a collection of her stories around the vampire myth, is a revelation: old monsters are made anew-sometimes as metaphors, others as true beings from the shadows-and they call to us, so we find ourselves in them."" -Gabriela Damián Miravete, author of They Will Dream in the Garden ""For many years, Gabriela Rábago Palafox has been the secret ""cool aunt"" of a few Mexican writers who, even without knowing of her existence, sensed that another kind of literature could be created, one in which the expression of the fantastic would challenge the status quo in a more eloquent, precise, and liberating way. The Voice of Blood confirms that we are part of a rebellious genealogy that didn't stop with Amparo Dávila or Guadalupe Dueñas, but rather mutated in Gabriela, whether through the generous tools of children's literature, fantasy literature, horror, or science fiction, evolving into a literature capable of naming not only the oppressions that still loom over us, but of dismantling them with the demiurgic power of language, of narrative. We owe you so much, dear Gabriela!""

Author Information

Gabriela Rábago Palafox (1948-1995) is best known as an award-winning author, poet, and playwright in her native Mexico, where she also worked as journalist, translator, and cultural activist. Her literary achievements included the 1977 Juan de la Cabada National Children's Story Prize for ""Relatos de la ciudad sin dueño"" (Stories of a city with no owner), the 1979 Clementina Otero de Barrios Award for her play ""Godofrina,"" a Fellowship from the Centro Mexicano de Escritores (Center for Mexican Writers), and the 1988 Puebla Fantasy and Science Fiction Short-Story Award for ""Pandemia"" (Pandemic), the first awarded to a woman. She also won the 1989 National Literary Award for ""La voz de la sangre"" (The Voice of Blood) and the Mexican award for Best Crime Novel for ""Los cazadores"" (The hunters) in 1994. Her pioneering use of horror, speculative elements, and queer narratives positions her as a precursor to the new wave of Latin American women writers who have revitalized the genre of literary horror to confront contemporary political and environmental crises. Contemporary Mexican writer Gabriela Damián Miravete has highlighted Rábago Palafox's importance by stating that if she had not met with an untimely death in 1995, she would have likely become one of the most important voices of Mexican speculative fiction. Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at the University of Florida. Her most recent book is ""Cyborgs, Sexuality, and the Undead: The Body in Mexican and Brazilian Speculative Fiction"" (Vanderbilt UP, 2020). She is the author of ""Brazilian Science Fiction: Cultural Myths and Nationhood in the Land of the Future"" (Bucknell UP, 2004) and co-editor of ""Latin American Science Fiction: Theory and Practice"" (Palgrave, 2012) with J. Andrew Brown. She is currently co-editing a volume of SF essays on political and ecological crisis in Latin America with Terry Harpold for the UP of Florida. Her work has appeared in journals such as ""Alambique,"" ""Extrapolation,"" ""Hispania,"" ""Luso-Brazilian Review,"" ""Modern Language Studies,"" ""Revista de Estudios Hispánicos,"" ""Paradoxa,"" ""Revista Iberoamericana,"" ""Science Fiction Studies,"" and ""Zanzalá."" A Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages and Global Studies at the University of North Dakota. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 2024. His research interests cover the fields of Peninsular and Catalan Studies, primarily on issues related to memory, trauma, identity, and gender. He primarily works with literature and film covering the Spanish Civil War, Francoist era, and the Democratic Transition in Spain, but is also interested in Speculative Fiction both Iberian and Latin American. His research has been published in venues such as ""Alambique: Revista Académica de Ciencia Ficción y Fantasía,"" ""ÍMPETU,"" and ""Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades.""

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