Elaine Vilar Madruga – författare

'Shocking… violence, motherhood and death in the jungle' Mariana Enríquez, author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed Benedicta has given birth, over and over. But she will never be a mother. Benedicta lives with her mother, her sister and her many children on a hacienda surrounded by dense rainforest.The jungle is a hungry god: it allows them to live safely away from a ruthless world of guerrillas and drug traffickers, but at a terrible price. Its voracity is never-ending, and those who live under its control must offer up their children in a sacrificial cycle powered by blood and madness.One day Romina, a pregnant sex worker from the nearest town, emerges from the rainforest. Will she be the one to break the cycle?Brutal, powerful and deeply unsettling, this Caribbean gothic fable about motherhood and the female body is a truly unique and unforgettable novel, from a writer at the peak of her powers.

“Elaine Vilar Madruga is a powerful, elegant, and daring voice. I want to read everything she writes." — MARIANA ENRIQUEZIn this award-winning horror novel from Latin America, a community of women and children—and one man—fight for survival in a harsh and terrifying Cuban rainforest where the gods require appeasement through brutal sacrifice.The forest is a terrifying, hungry god with harsh rules and a ravenous appetite that must be fed. In this ruthless world mothers raise their children as food, a cannibalistic system of offerings and retribution from which there is no escape. For women, survival depends on becoming mothers. They must reproduce even as their children grow up trapped between life and death, heaven and hell. Such is life on the hacienda.To ensure the forest’s protection, its inhabitants must renounce their rights and any trace of hope. Among them is Benedicta, a cruel and prolific “whelp” producer, now past her prime. The timid Lazaro, the community's only man, fears the forest, Benedicta, and the memory of his mother. Benedicta's daughter, Ifigenia, lives on borrowed time as she anticipates the forest's call. She loathes everyone, including the feral “she-dog” Ananda, whose fury has given way to madness. And then there’s Romina, a hardened newcomer to the forest who may just break the cycle.A Caribbean-flavored novel of gothic horror from one of Latin America's most exciting young writers, What the Forest Devours is a macabre examination of what women must sacrifice to survive in a society with the power to destroy them at any turn. With its spine-tingling allegories, impressive imaginative vision, and a dazzling translation courtesy of acclaimed translator Kevin Gerry Dunn, English language readers can experience the dazzling masterpiece that has swallowed the Spanish literary world whole.