Chimal comes as close as we will get to the secret palpitation of our present.
Cristina Rivera Garza
Alberto Chimal is a master of the uncanny.
Mariana Enríquez
Alberto Chimal (Toluca, México, 1970) is a writer and creative writing teacher. He won the 2002 National Short Story Book Award for Estos son los días (These Are the Days) and the 2014 Colima Prize for a published work of fiction for Manda fuego (Let Fire Rain Down); his 2012 novel La torre y el jardín (The Tower and the Garden) was shortlisted for the Rómulo Gallegos International Award, one of the most prestigious in the Spanish language; and his dystopian novel La noche en la zona M (Night in the M Zone) won the International Award for a young adult novel from Banco del Libro in 2021. He also was awarded the FILEM Prize, a career-spanning recognition, in 2024. His latest projects in Spanish are Las estancias secretas (The Secret Rooms), a collection of short stories published in Spain by Atalanta, and his script for the movie Confesiones (Confessions), directed by Carlos Carrera. He is also the author of comics and essays, and has a large online following as a disseminator of creative writing and literature.
Alberto Chimal is represented by VF Agencia Literaria.
[English text by D. P. Snyder]
New releases in translation
Scary Story
London, Pamenar Press, 2023. Two weird fiction stories, illustrated with photos by the author. Translated by D. P. Snyder.
From the publisher’s site: «SCARY STORY brings one of Mexico’s most exciting literary figures to Anglophone literature for the first time! Shedding light on the brutal violence that continues to target the underprivileged, marginalized, neglected, and oppressed in Mexico and beyond. In the author’s word, SCARY STORY is ‘a hybrid text, equal parts horror story and political poem, and it takes the form of a countdown, imperceptible to everyone in the universe of the story itself.’» MORE INFO
83 romanzi
Rome, Pièdimosca Edizioni, 2023. 83 «microfiction» stories. Translated by Loris Tassi.
From the publisher’s site: «83 ROMANZI (83 novels), by Alberto Chimal, is an exercise of imagination and at the same time a a test for reality: tiny worlds ready to expand into infinity, yet able to exist within the space of a tweet.» MORE INFO