Nefando [Paperback]

A techno-horror portrait of the fears and desires of six young artists whose lives are upended by a controversial video game, from National Book Award finalist Mónica Ojeda.

Six young artists share an apartment in Barcelona: Kiki Ortega, a researcher writing a pornographic novel; Iván Herrera, a writer whose prose reveals a deeply conflicted relationship with his body; three siblings, Irene, Emilio, and Cecilia, who quietly search for ways to transcend their abuse as children; and El Cuco Martínez, a video-game designer whose creations push beneath the substrate of the digital world. All of them are connected in different ways toNefando,a controversial cult video game whose purpose remains a mystery. In the parallel reality of the game, players found relief from the pain of past trauma and present shame, but also a frighteningly elastic sense of self and ethics. Is Nefando a game for horror enthusiasts, a challenge to players' morals, or a poetic exercise? What happens in a virtual world that admits every taboo?

Unsparing, addictive, and perverse,Nefandotakes us to the darkest corners of the web, revealing the inevitable entanglement of digital and physical worlds, and of technology and horror.USMónica Ojeda(Ecuador, 1988) is the author of the novelsLa desfiguración Silva(Premio Alba Narrativa, 2014),Nefando(Candaya, 2016), andMandíbula(Candaya, 2018), as well as the poetry collectionsEl ciclo de las piedras(Rastro de la Iguana, 2015) andHistoria de la leche(Candaya, 2020). Her stories have been published in the anthology <>Emergencias: Doce cuentos iberoamericanos (Candaya, 2014) and the collectionsCaninos(Editorial Turbina, 2017) andLas voladoras(Páginas de Espuma, 2020). In 2017, she was included on the Bógota39 list of the best thirty-nine Latin American writers under forty, and in 2019, she received the Prince Claus Next GenerlCt