On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessedall those birds were once women.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighbourhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be womenthese and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.

Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquezs stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell,A Sunny Place for Shady Peopleshowcases Enriquezs unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her the most exciting discovery Ive made in fiction for some time.