Like those of Kafka, Poe, Leonora Carrington, or Shirley Jackson, Amparo D vila's stories are terrifying, mesmerizing, and expertly crafted--you'll finish each one gasping for air. With acute psychological insight, D vila follows her characters to the limits of desire, paranoia, insomnia, and fear. She is a writer obsessed with obsession, who makes nightmares come to life through the everyday: loneliness sinks in easily like a razor-sharp knife, some sort of evil lurks in every shadow, delusion takes the form of strange and very real creatures. After reading The Houseguest--D vila's debut collection in English--you'll wonder how this secret was kept for so long.