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The Dirty Kid
"The story you are about to read explores the relationship between an upper-class graphic designer and a homeless child. Drawing on rural mythology and the texture of everyday life in Buenos Aires, Enriquez brings two distinct Porteño social classes into direct contact with each other, illuminating both the absurdity and the logic of the divisions that exist between them. It’s an enchanting, heartrending story—and also a remarkable meditation on the nature of violence and suspicion. Enriquez is a true storyteller, and through her work, you can sense the presence of a remarkably generous spirit."
- Daniel Gumbiner, Managing Editor of McSweeney's
About the Author:
Mariana Enriquez was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1973. She has a degree in Journalism and Social Communication from Universidad Nacional de La Plata, and she is the editor of Radar, the arts and culture supplement for Pagina/12. She has published two novels, Bajar es lo peor and Cómo desaparecer completamente, a collection of short stories, Los peligros de fumar en la cama, a novella, Chicos que vuelven, and a collection of travel narratives.
About the Translator:
Joel Streicker’s translations of Latin American authors have appeared in A Public Space, Subtropics, Words Without Borders, Zyzzyva, and Epiphany. He received a 2011 PEN American Center Translation Fund Grant to translate Samanta Schweblin’s collection of short stories, Pájaros en la boca. Streicker holds a B.A. in Latin American studies from the University of Michigan and a PhD in cultural anthropology from Stanford University.
About the Guest Editor:
McSweeney’s began in 1998 as a literary journal that published only works rejected by other magazines. That rule was soon abandoned, and since then McSweeney’s has attracted work from some of the finest writers in the country, while continuing to be a major home for new and unpublished writers. Each issue of the quarterly is completely redesigned. There have been hardcovers and paperbacks, an issue with two spines, an issue with a magnetic binding, an issue that looked like a bundle of junk mail, and an issue that looked like a sweaty human head. McSweeney’s has won multiple literary awards, including two National Magazine Awards for fiction.
About Electric Literature:
Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction.
- Daniel Gumbiner, Managing Editor of McSweeney's
About the Author:
Mariana Enriquez was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1973. She has a degree in Journalism and Social Communication from Universidad Nacional de La Plata, and she is the editor of Radar, the arts and culture supplement for Pagina/12. She has published two novels, Bajar es lo peor and Cómo desaparecer completamente, a collection of short stories, Los peligros de fumar en la cama, a novella, Chicos que vuelven, and a collection of travel narratives.
About the Translator:
Joel Streicker’s translations of Latin American authors have appeared in A Public Space, Subtropics, Words Without Borders, Zyzzyva, and Epiphany. He received a 2011 PEN American Center Translation Fund Grant to translate Samanta Schweblin’s collection of short stories, Pájaros en la boca. Streicker holds a B.A. in Latin American studies from the University of Michigan and a PhD in cultural anthropology from Stanford University.
About the Guest Editor:
McSweeney’s began in 1998 as a literary journal that published only works rejected by other magazines. That rule was soon abandoned, and since then McSweeney’s has attracted work from some of the finest writers in the country, while continuing to be a major home for new and unpublished writers. Each issue of the quarterly is completely redesigned. There have been hardcovers and paperbacks, an issue with two spines, an issue with a magnetic binding, an issue that looked like a bundle of junk mail, and an issue that looked like a sweaty human head. McSweeney’s has won multiple literary awards, including two National Magazine Awards for fiction.
About Electric Literature:
Electric Literature is an independent publisher amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction.
- GenresShort StoriesHorror
25 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 20, 2014
About the author
Mariana Enriquez
96 books11.2k followersMariana Enriquez (Buenos Aires, 1973) es una periodista y escritora argentina.
Se recibió de Licenciada en Comunicación Social en la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Se ha desempeñado profesionalmente como periodista y columnista en medios gráficos, como el suplemento Radar del diario Página/12 (donde es sub-editora) y las revistas TXT, La mano, La mujer de mi vida y El Guardián. También participó en radio, como columnista en el programa Gente de a pie, por Radio Nacional.
Trabajó como jurado en concursos literarios y dictó talleres de escritura en la Fundación Tomás Eloy Martínez
Mariana Enríquez is a writer and editor based in Buenos Aires. She is the author of the novel Our Share of Night and has published two story collections in English, Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed , which was a finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction.
Se recibió de Licenciada en Comunicación Social en la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Se ha desempeñado profesionalmente como periodista y columnista en medios gráficos, como el suplemento Radar del diario Página/12 (donde es sub-editora) y las revistas TXT, La mano, La mujer de mi vida y El Guardián. También participó en radio, como columnista en el programa Gente de a pie, por Radio Nacional.
Trabajó como jurado en concursos literarios y dictó talleres de escritura en la Fundación Tomás Eloy Martínez
Mariana Enríquez is a writer and editor based in Buenos Aires. She is the author of the novel Our Share of Night and has published two story collections in English, Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed , which was a finalist for the International Booker Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 30, 2015
“She gives me the shivers, mami. She’s, like, I don’t know, damned.”
Mariana Enriquez is an Argentinian author whose first English-language collection of short stories, The Things We Lost in the Fire will be published in 2017. As a sample of that yet-untranslated volume, "The Dirty Kid" is intense, horrible and compulsive, an absorbing piece of weird fiction that makes 2017 seem all too far away.
Set in Constitución, Argentina, against a background of grinding poverty, drug abuse and folk religion, "The Dirty Kid" is a short story (technically a novelette) about of a reclusive journalist and her increasing fascination with a homeless boy, the young son of an crack-addict mother. The kid of the title, never named, is no angelic symbol of doomed innocence. He is glum, rotten-toothed, and yes, dirty child who annoys the narrator with his lack of charm:
I wanted to shake him; immediately, I was ashamed of myself. He needed me to help him. He had no reason to satiate my morbid curiosity, but something about his silence angered me. I wanted him to be a friendly and enchanting little boy, not this sullen and dirty kid who ate his rice and chicken slowly, savoring each mouthful, and belched after finishing his glass of Coca-Cola.
The narrator makes a clumsy attempt to show kindness to the child, but her actions only lead to doom. San La Muerte, patron saint of death, walks the streets, witches lurk just out of sight and drug lords commit barely imaginable acts of violence. The author's almost lurid descriptions of the religion of the dispossessed bring to mind Lynda Edwards's famous essay on homeless children, angels and monsters, Myths over Miami.
Enriquez's words effortlessly bring Constitución and its inhabitants to life, though I felt uneasy at her portrayal of trans women: the presence of large numbers of trans women, many of them sex workers, seemed to be used as a symbol of the seediness and grotesqueness of Constitución as a neighbourhood.
But this was my only misgiving: "The Dirty Kid" is a brilliant story, evocative yet economical, written with a gentle heart and razor-sharp teeth.
Mariana Enriquez is an Argentinian author whose first English-language collection of short stories, The Things We Lost in the Fire will be published in 2017. As a sample of that yet-untranslated volume, "The Dirty Kid" is intense, horrible and compulsive, an absorbing piece of weird fiction that makes 2017 seem all too far away.
Set in Constitución, Argentina, against a background of grinding poverty, drug abuse and folk religion, "The Dirty Kid" is a short story (technically a novelette) about of a reclusive journalist and her increasing fascination with a homeless boy, the young son of an crack-addict mother. The kid of the title, never named, is no angelic symbol of doomed innocence. He is glum, rotten-toothed, and yes, dirty child who annoys the narrator with his lack of charm:
I wanted to shake him; immediately, I was ashamed of myself. He needed me to help him. He had no reason to satiate my morbid curiosity, but something about his silence angered me. I wanted him to be a friendly and enchanting little boy, not this sullen and dirty kid who ate his rice and chicken slowly, savoring each mouthful, and belched after finishing his glass of Coca-Cola.
The narrator makes a clumsy attempt to show kindness to the child, but her actions only lead to doom. San La Muerte, patron saint of death, walks the streets, witches lurk just out of sight and drug lords commit barely imaginable acts of violence. The author's almost lurid descriptions of the religion of the dispossessed bring to mind Lynda Edwards's famous essay on homeless children, angels and monsters, Myths over Miami.
Enriquez's words effortlessly bring Constitución and its inhabitants to life, though I felt uneasy at her portrayal of trans women: the presence of large numbers of trans women, many of them sex workers, seemed to be used as a symbol of the seediness and grotesqueness of Constitución as a neighbourhood.
But this was my only misgiving: "The Dirty Kid" is a brilliant story, evocative yet economical, written with a gentle heart and razor-sharp teeth.
September 14, 2023
me dejó un mal cuerpo impresionante, pensar que cosas así habrán pasado millones
October 26, 2019
This book was excellent. It was recommended by the author Paul Tremblay in a NYT piece 10/25/19 Suggestions? We have a few thrillers to share
March 16, 2019
Well written and very morbid.
This was a quick and easy ready yet, painfully sad and some what scary and depressing. Well written but very morbid. I’ll prepared for what I got.
This was a quick and easy ready yet, painfully sad and some what scary and depressing. Well written but very morbid. I’ll prepared for what I got.
February 20, 2023
Proxy for ‘My Sad Dead’ - New Yorker short story read for our book club. A ghost story meditation on class warfare, economic strife and loss.
July 10, 2024
Mi primer acercamiento a Mariana Enriquez
August 10, 2024
no le doy 5 bc it was a super short read pero me encantó. me dio un poco de pena y cosita pensar que, aunque el libro es ficticio, estas cosas pasan realmente. will defintely read more books from this author
October 30, 2024
Read this for my spanish class on literary studies and I was pleasantly horrified!!
Read
November 7, 2024Kurslit
Man kände verkligen jättemycket när man väl läste denna novell, beskriver våld mot barn.
Man kände verkligen jättemycket när man väl läste denna novell, beskriver våld mot barn.
December 11, 2025
Historia 18/31 que leí en octubre.
Súper corto, pero muy inquietante. Me da escalofríos pensar que cosas como en esta historia pasan realmente en la vida real.
Súper corto, pero muy inquietante. Me da escalofríos pensar que cosas como en esta historia pasan realmente en la vida real.
August 24, 2020
Si. Las descripciones hacen que sientas horror y terror sobre situaciones cotidianas.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews