Gabino Iglesias is an author of horror fiction, as well as an editor and literary critic. His works have won the Shirley Jackson Award and Bram Stoker Award. His works have been described as "barrio noir". His works often incorporate elements of noir fiction as well as political commentary about the border between the United States and Mexico.
Iglesias is from Puerto Rico. In 1999, he began writing a "basic story" about revenge. After the success of his novel The Devil Takes You Home, he developed this story into the novel The House of Bone and Rain, which was published in 2024.[1]
English is Iglesias's second language. In an interview with NPR, Iglesias stated "I didn't speak a word of it until I was, like, in sixth or seventh grade."[2] Iglesias moved to the mainland United States in 2008 and began writing in English at that time.[3]
Literary Career
In an interview with Nightmare Magazine, Iglesias stated that he first began to read bizarro fiction in about 2007. His first published novel, 2012's Gutmouth, was part of the bizarro genre. He then wrote Zero Saints, which he described as a difficult and emotional task. When he needed a break, he wrote a "palate cleanser" which eventually became Hungry Darkness.[4]
His novels have been described as "barrio noir."[4] Ilana Masad wrote about Iglesias's 2022 novel The Devil Takes You Home and its relationship to noir fiction. Masad quotes Otto Penzler by stating that noir characters "are caught in the inescapable prisons of their own construction, forever trapped by their isolation from their own souls, as well as from society and the moral restrictions that permit it to be regarded as civilized." Masad then quoted Iglesias himself, who describes "barrio noir" as "any writing that walks between languages, borders, and cultures [and] that occupies a plethora of interstitial spaces and isn't afraid to engage with all religions and superstitions as well as to bring in supernatural elements." Masad further situated Iglesias's writing in the modern world, describing its relationship to migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border, the curtailing of reproductive rights by the United States Supreme Court, and mass shootings, among other issues.[5]
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