A short life of the author
Horacio Castellanos Moya (b. 1957) was born on 21 November 1957 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and grew up in El Salvador. He studied literature in San Salvador and journalism in Mexico City. He has lived in exile in Mexico, Guatemala, Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United States due to death threats. He teaches at the University of Iowa.
Life and Career
El asco: Thomas Bernhard en San Salvador (1997, Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador) — a monologue by a Salvadoran intellectual who has returned from exile and finds everything about his country loathsome — earned him death threats and forced him into exile. The title pays tribute to Bernhard, whose influence (ranting monologues, corrosive satire) pervades his work.
La diabla en el espejo (2000, The She-Devil in the Mirror) — narrated by a socialite investigating her best friend’s murder in San Salvador — is a tour de force of unreliable narration. Insensatez (2004, Senselessness) — about a writer in Guatemala hired to proofread a 1,100-page report documenting army massacres of indigenous communities — is his most acclaimed novel: a short, devastating work about complicity, madness, and the impossibility of bearing witness to atrocity.
El sueño del retorno (2013, The Dream of My Return) and Moronga (2018) continued his body of work.
Key Works
- Senselessness (2004)
- The She-Devil in the Mirror (2000)
- Revulsion (1997)
Collecting Castellanos Moya
Spanish-language editions are the true firsts. English translations (New Directions) bring $10–$25.