To Bewitch a Hunter

“Proceed with caution because, as with many great books, not everything is entirely what it seems.”—Samanta Schweblin, National Book Award-winning author of Seven Empty Houses

“An astonishing writer. . . . Each of his books is, for me, an event.” —Mariana Enríquez, author of Our Share of the Night

For fans of Pet Sematary and Tender is the Flesh, an award-winning novel from Argentina that begins when an adopted woman is approached by someone claiming to know what happened to her real parents—an encounter that triggers a hallucinatory odyssey into the dark years of dictatorship and a family history of disappearances and blood sacrifice.

“I know who you think you are, and I know who you truly are.”

One day, while out walking the streets of Buenos Aires, Julia is stopped by a stranger who inexplicably knows everything about her. The stranger, an elegant older woman named Griselda, claims to be her grandmother—her real grandmother—and insists that Julia's parents are not in fact her true parents. For Julia, who has always felt out of place, what should be an earth-shattering revelation comes almost as a relief. Suddenly motivated to seek out the truth of her past, Julia uncovers a birthright that lays claim to her with a frightening grip. . . .

What follows is a terrifying odyssey into the dark years of the dictatorship that ruled Argentina and the story of the Lara family: the golden child Luis, his physician father Braulio, and the unforgettable Griselda—whose love and desperation drive them to trade their souls.

Beginning as a search for identity, To Bewitch a Hunter soon transforms into a monstrous excavation of a terror born in the Argentina of the 1960s and 1970s, only to continue to the present day. Julia's journey takes us into a territory of supernatural horror that echoes the bloody legacy of Argentina's history.