Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Ananda Lima

What inspired you to start writing?

I am often inspired by trippy things, the uncanny, and stories involving divergent perspectives. For my latest book, I was inspired by a lot of different things that came together in strange and fun ways. One big one was the history of the future of the Devil and its many cool manifestations in fiction. Another was storytelling in general and the way we talk about writing Craft. Another inspiration was the experience of being an immigrant writer and anti-immigrant narratives. Also Brazilian literature and 1980’s and 1990’s movies like The Fly and Gremlins 2. This and more was part of the brew that ended up becoming Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil.

Tell us about your work in 25 words or less.

Craft is a collection of interlinked short stories with a meta frame of the writer of those stories. It’s strange, meta, and full of heart.

What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?

I wasn’t particularly thinking about the classification of my book as I was writing it. When I saw that Tor was calling it horror, I felt so cool! I loved it. I love being a horror writer. I feel like the book is horror and also literary fiction and magical realism, all at the same time. Having a conversation with an editor friend, I realized that one of the things I like the most about horror is its embrace of discomfort. I love that. There is also an openness to strangeness. There is such a wonderful range of work in horror and I am so happy to be a part of that wide spectrum.

Do you make a conscious effort to include LatinX characters and/or themes in your writing, and if so, what do you want to portray?

It was very easy for me to include LatinX characters in my work because that is so close to my experience and very natural to me. This book, in particular, has nods to “the writer” of the book and nods intentionally to me. There is a little “fake auto-fiction” in it. Since I am Brazilian, the main character, the writer, is also Brazilian. And so are some of the other characters she interacts with.

What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?

There is so much amazing horror out there, and it continues to teach so much all the time. But a couple of things it has taught me is to find a space for hope, life, love, loyalty, even amongst the horror. How to continue to strive for and find those things, even when there is so much that is horrific. Another is to embrace or seek to learn from discomfort, and what is not fully explained or known.

How have you seen the horror genre change over the years? And how do you think it will continue to evolve?

I am an excited relative newcomer to the genre (after admiring and dabbling from afar over the years), and I am loving it. In film and writing, I am seeing amazing work being published now that plays with the boundaries of genre, or that engages with societal horrors, and a variety of perspectives. I feel like this is a great thing and that making sure to give space to a lot of perspectives will give us even more surprise, discovery, and exciting work.

Time to daydream: what are some aspects of LatinX history or culture – stories from your childhood, historical events, etc — that you really want our genre to tackle? (Whether or not you’re the one to tackle them!)

There are so many figures of Brazilian folklore that I find beautiful and fascinating. I would love to read work involving them.

Who are some of your favorite LatinX characters in horror?

La Llorona is such a rich character that I am fascinated by. Another one that I love comes from Brazilian folklore: Curupira. This is a trickster-type character that protects the forests. He has backward feet so that its footprints can disorient hunters who overhunt. A rendition I particularly like comes from a Brazilian classic, a 1928 novel called Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade (there is a recent translation by Katrina Dodson that is excellent). In that novel, Curupira meets the protagonist of the novel, Macunaima, in the forest. Macunaima is hungry, and Curupira offers him some meat. The catch, though, is that the meat ends up being a chunk Curupira cuts off from his own leg right in front of him. Once Macunaima eats the piece of Curupira’s leg, he realizes Curupira wants to eat him! He runs. Curupira calls out for the meat that came from his leg. The meat responds, calling out from within the protagonist’s stomach. Curupira uses the sound to try and find Macunaima. The novel is not horror, but it feels like it would make great horror to me.

Who are some LatinX horror authors you recommend our audience check out?

I love the amazing work of Gabino Iglesias, Cynthia Pelayo, Gus Moreno, and Juan Martinez. I also love Samanta Schweblin and Marina Henriquez, this work that hovers between literary fiction and horror.

What is one piece of advice you would give horror authors today?

Write the book that you would love to read. Stay true to your story, to what moves you.

What is one piece of craft advice you’ve gotten that has really worked for you? Alternatively, what’s one that you’ve happily rejected?

Find a writing community. I plan on continuing to be a writer for the rest of my life. It is too long to do it alone!

Don’t write about writers.

And to the LatinX writers out there who are just getting started, what advice would you give them?

Find community, and don’t cater to what you think is expected of you. Write the work you want to write.

Ananda Lima is a poet, fiction writer, and translator, the author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil (Tor Books) and the poetry collection Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press), winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Witness, and elsewhere. She has served as a mentor at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Program, and currently serves as a Contributing Editor at Poets & Writers, Program Curator at StoryStudio Chicago. She has an MA in Linguistics from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Rutgers University, Newark. Craft, her fiction debut, has received starred reviews from Kirkus Review, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and The New York Times described it as “a remarkable debut that announces the arrival of a towering talent in speculative fiction.” Originally from Brazil, she lives in Chicago.