Presentation: Cosamala, by Alana S. Portero

Andalusia, 1937. The Carranza column—composed of horsemen, bullfighters, Falangists, landowners, and Civil Guards—advances through the northern mountains of Seville, subjugating everything in its path and drenching the land in blood, like Death riding across the fields. A group of women—wives, mothers, and neighbors of fugitives and the persecuted—initiate themselves in the dark language as a form of resistance, forming a coven with the goal of bringing life back to an infertile country with the help of their dead and ghosts.

Cosamala is a witch story that stems from a real Civil War crime and feeds on elements of horror and folklore to build its own female mythology of vengeance, love, and death.

After becoming an international phenomenon with La mala costumbre (Bad Habit), Alana S. Portero draws on her love for history and oral legends to pay tribute to all the women murdered for understanding the land as a wellspring of wisdom. The result is a Gothic, Southern, Lorca-inspired, and anti-fascist novel.

• Organized by: Seix Barral