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Everyone else has book clubs—Shoreditch House have a Literary Salon. The Salon lures the world’s best writers to London to read to you from their latest greatest works. Previous guests have included Francesca Beauman, Geoff Dyer and Jojo Moyes. The host is Damian Barr, Times journalist and Radio 4 playwright. The whole affair is lubrcated by free servings of the delightfully peculiar Hendrick’s and Tonic with cucumber. You don’t to be in the industry to come along, you just need to be into books.

If you would like to attend then join the Facebook group:
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You do not need to be a member of Shoreditch House to join.

Nina Melero

Litro Magazine Editor Katy Darby discusses genre fiction, literary influences and horror story tradition with Spanish writer, Nina Melero.

If you would like to read Nina Melero’s story, ‘Dirty Intentions’ please click here.

Nina Melero is a translator and writer. She teaches Spanish and Translation Studies at Kingston University and at the University of Westminster. Her publications include research articles on applied translation theory and literary translation as well as short stories, some of which have been awarded literary prizes (Art Nalon Letras 2007, Planeta Jóvenes Talentos 2005 and 2007). Tenebrario is her latest collection of short stories. Nina is currently completing her next book, Messiah 2.0, a cyberpunk novel about inhumanity and the non-human.

Why do you choose to focus on genre writing and do you think it’s hard to get horror/chiller stories in front of mainstream readers?

Well, I wouldn’t say that I consciously decided to write a book of a certain genre. The process was different – I didn’t plan to write a horror book, but the stories which were born in me when I was writing the book happen to deal with topics which some people may associate with ‘horror’. All the stories are constructed upon the same idea: they present extraneous elements which suddenly invade our everyday life, intruding into our comfort zone and forcing us to remember how little we actually know and understand about the world. However, my aim when I was writing the stories was not so much to ‘scare’ the reader, as to explore some of the topics that I personally found disturbing. And the only way to find out what I really feel and I think about them was to write these stories. To be honest I am not very sure how accurate it is to define all the stories in the book as ‘horror stories’.  However, I guess it makes it easier for future readers if we help them identify what they could possibly enjoy reading (or not) by trying to define the content of a book in general terms. And ‘horror’ is certainly a very broad term.

I remember that Juan Rulfo, the Mexican writer, once said that one day he had gone to the library to look for a book he wanted to read, but he could not find it anywhere. So he decided to write it himself. I guess that is what happens to me sometimes – I try to write what I think I would like to read.

What does the genre of horror mean to you, personally? What frightens you?

I think that ‘horror’, has traditionally been considered a ‘minor’ genre, especially in Spain. Sometimes we seem to forget that horror is one of the oldest genres in the history of literature. The horror tale is as old as human thought, and it is present in the folkloric tradition of any culture, anywhere in the world, feeding on people’s natural fear of the inexplicable and the unknown – that which cannot be controlled. If you think of it, ‘horror’ is an essential part of books such as the Greek Iliad or even the Bible. We also need to consider that the belief in the supernatural is the basis for any religion, so in a way it is a universal value.

In general, I think that if we can define literature as the description of human passions, then the attraction and repulsion that fear provokes is not to be underestimated as a literary topic.

As for what scares me personally, well, I am sure your readers won’t have the time or the patience to read the whole list … [Laughs]. Because the list is long, from empty bathtubs to cats that stare at you for too long. There are lots of absurd things which scare me, which I guess is something positive, because I think that in order to write horror stories you need to be a bit of a ‘scaredy cat’ [Laughs].

Not a lot of English readers will be familiar with Spanish horror fiction: do you consider yourself to be writing inside our outside a Spanish (or other) horror tradition and if so, can you tell me about that tradition and those writers?

Well, Spain, unlike English-speaking countries, does not have a long tradition in horror literature. Nevertheless, in the last two decades there has been an unexpected emergence of the genre, especially in cinema. As you know, many of the latest Spanish films belong to the horror genre –The Others, Orphan, The Orphanage, REC; etc. The critics have labelled this current ‘the New Spanish Horror Fiction’. However, ‘horror’ fiction in Spain is not a totally new phenomenon, and it is not only related to film. From the 80s there are many writers, such as Pilar Pedraza and Cristina Fernández Cubas who have been regularly publishing modern horror fiction, and who have been received with enthusiasm by both the public and the critics. So, there is not a long tradition in this genre in Spanish, but I think it is increasingly becoming more popular among both readers and writers.

I don’t know if my texts are related to what other Spanish authors write, but this current is something that I certainly find interesting.

Who are your literary influences (English/Spanish/other)?

It is difficult to say what authors have influenced my writing, and I think my readers will definitely be in a better position to answer that question. What I can tell you is which writers I do enjoy reading and which books have been important for me as a writer.

If I think of it, the three books which have impressed me the most happen to be short stories as well.

The first one is of course Metamorphosis, the story of Gregor Samsa, who as you know turns into a giant insect overnight. That is probably one of the best stories I have ever read. I particularly like the way in which Kafka creates ‘monsterness’ without describing anything. For in Metamorphosis, the monster, the giant insect, is not described at all, only suggested, and it is rather the absurdity of the situation and how people react to it that makes the story a ‘horror story’.

The two other short stories which for me represent what ‘good writing’ and ‘style’ are, are Company, by Samuel Beckett, and The House of Asterion, a short story by Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges, who wrote the story from the perspective of the Minotaur.

I read with interest about the significance of the ‘tenebrario’ in Catholicism: ‘tenebrous’ in English means dark and gloomy, shadowy: do you see those qualities in your stories? Do you try to include light as well as darkness?

Yes, the word is related to darkness. As a matter of fact, ‘Tenebrarium’ is the name of an object. It is a ritual candelabra used during Easter. It has many branches, and it is not the custom for the candles it holds to remain lit throughout the religious ceremony; instead the candles are put out in a rite to conjure up the darkness. I thought the name was suitable for the book because it provoked many interesting associations. The book is however not only about the darkness, but also about how we face up to it, about the candles we use to fight against the darkness.

And, as the readers may have noticed, most of the stories present characters that may be alone and very confused by the absurd situations they have to face up to, but they are not destroyed by the darkness – rather, they learn from it.

I’m fascinated by the final story in the book, The Last Line, partly because it plays around with metafictional ideas (a character in a story who is literally disappearing bit by bit) but also because it draws on the life and work of a very famous British writer, Saki. I assume you’re a fan of his but how did you get the idea to write this story and is the piece a homage to Saki in style as well as content?

Yes, Saki is one of my favourite writers – an author I had been missing out on until relatively recently. Some years ago, when I was working at the University of Exeter, I visited a town called Exmouth and saw a plaque on a house which said ‘Here lived English writer Saki’. I didn’t know who he was, but grew curious about his name. Then I discovered one of his stories, Sredni Vashtar, and fell in love with his way of writing.

The idea for the story you mention, The Last Line, came to me while I was reading a book about his life, which explained how he was writing something when he was killed in a trench during World War I. He was having a rest with some fellow soldiers and someone was smoking a cigarette. It seems that according to some versions, his last words before he was shot were ‘They are going to see us, put that bloody cigarette out!’, and then a sniper shot him. So I kept fantasizing about what he was writing at that moment (and wondering how someone could be writing in such a situation!). We will never know because his notebook was lost, so I decided to imagine the character he might have been writing and to create it myself. In my own story, The Last Line, I made that character interact with other characters Saki actually wrote, the ones who were read and will never die because they were published and they became famous.

What are you working on right now?

At the moment I am working on a novel about us, about humans, as an animal species. The novel is set in a threatening future time, when we suddenly cease to be the only species considering itself superior to others. I wanted to explore the topic of our relationship with the non-human. With non-human, I mean anything which is not us, be it an animal, or a creature of any kind. By imagining our species in a context where our identity as ‘rational, superior beings’ is challenged, I came across many unsolved questions, and my way to address them was to try and write a novel about them. The title is Messiah 2.0, and I hope it will be ready soon.

This interview was conducted on Monday October 18^th at the launch of Nina Melero’s short story collection Tenebrario, available (currently in Spanish only) at the European Bookshop. To find out more about Nina and her work, please visit her website at www.ninamelero.com. To buy her book, please visit the European Bookshop’s site: www.europeanbookshop.com

Dirty Intentions

By Nina Melero

Hello, I’m 18 years old and I feel damp. I live in the green house on Love of God Street. I’m the bathtub mildew.

I used to be attacked with all kinds of killer products, but since the flat was sub-let to the Dávilas, I haven’t had to worry.

I’ve settled into the two lower corners of the tub, and am planning to make my way surreptitiously to the back of the tap, which is most appealing, with all its metal nooks and crannies. After that I shall make a strategic withdrawal in order then to invade the whole bathroom, and my kingdom shall have no end.

Yesterday I heard something. Mrs Dávila was sitting in the bathtub very quietly. I sensed something strange because she didn’t start to wash, nor did she move. She just sat there naked, huddled up, watching the tap dripping, her right arm brushing against me, her tender back sliding into the murky water. Outside I could hear a deep, angry voice. I knew who it was talking, though he doesn’t come in here often, that much I must say. The voice spoke of a deranged woman, of a woman who needed help. It talked of a lost youth and a wait.

The telephone clicked when he hung up. Mrs Dávila shuddered and drew closer to me, her back trembling, covered in water-drops. I heard a gentle sob.

Mr Dávila is good-looking, there’s no doubt about that, but he never washes his head and he’s always spraying me with his toenails. He says he understands his wife’s situation, but things can’t carry on like this; he’s a young man, a man with his own affairs, who talks on the phone; a man with his whole life in front of him. My God, I’ve really taken against him. What I particularly hate is when he pays me a visit (he could at least use the soap, he certainly needs to). He’s in the habit of whistling while he undresses, of scratching at his groin. The warm water falls down his nape, between his legs. The worst bit is when he really begins to relax; I withdraw into myself because I know what’s going to happen next, and I can’t help thinking, for God’s sake, please don’t shower for another month!

Meanwhile Mrs Dávila continues to spend her time here, curled up in the tub, obsessively combing her long curls. She rarely turns the tap on; sometimes she doesn’t even get undressed. She just sits herself down, in bare feet, with a bland, pretty smile on her face. She can stay like that for hours. Then her husband comes in, slams the door, snatches the comb, throws it on the floor. He says she’s mad. He doesn’t want her in the house, he can’t take it any more. He drags her out of the tub and smacks her in an attempt to clear her thoughts, to arouse that sleepy brain of hers. I contract, shivering through my pores. But she never cries. No way, she just picks up her comb and leaves the room.

I know they want to take Mrs Dávila away. I can feel it, I realise it when she spends hours writing her name on the condensed mirror, running her finger time and time again over my juicy surface, stroking me so much I have to shiver. I must confess, one day she really scared me. She came in here, started staring at me and singing a song about a forest and a girl. Then she did something really weird: she put her forefinger on my most mucilaginous bit and scraped it, pinching off a piece. I screamed out in silence. She gazed at the mould on her finger, then lifted it to her mouth. That hurt; come on, everybody knows bathtub mildew lives and breathes and has feelings and all that stuff. And yet I swear just the thought that a part of me was rolling around inside her little strawberry mouth made it all worthwhile. After that she’d come back every night and eat a little of this humble must. It’s become our secret, a communion as absurd as it is unconfessable.

Mrs Dávila is a special kind of woman, she always has been. I don’t mind that. I love her in my own way, and most of all I’m grateful to her for giving me the most important moment in my modest fungal life. It was a few years ago, I can’t remember how many. Mrs Dávila was pregnant. I was young back then and my nether regions weren’t half as big as they are now. She would settle into the tub and whisper,  stroking her swollen tummy, “You’re not having it. You’re not having it. I’m just as capable of looking after it as you are. You’re not taking it away from me.” And the day arrived. It was October 10th, 1972. That night was the most emotional I’ve ever experienced. She knew it; she knew it was going to happen. She locked the door, got undressed very calmly, and stepped into the tub. She opened her legs, pressed her feet against my edges. She stayed next to me for hours, her laboured breathing echoing inside me. I heard a scream, then another. I couldn’t tell what was going on. Her husband kept banging on the door.

The water gradually turned red. A tender, fleshy lump slid into the heart of the warm tub. The child was crying; me too. I never saw it again.

Mrs Dávila’s illness is getting worse all the time. It’s got to the point where I can’t sleep at night, waiting for her to turn up with her torch. As I explained before, she’ll sit in the tub, scratch away at me with her finger. Tear off a piece, put it in her mouth, swallow. And so on for hours. She’ll finish me off at this rate, but I don’t mind.

Until today, when my worst fears were realised.

It’s been a terrible winter, the water’s frozen in the pipes and I’m having a tough time of it. I’m drying up and my colonizing squadrons haven’t got further than the plug chain. He’s been shouting again. Saying they’ll come and take her away to the madhouse, for her own good, everything’s arranged, tomorrow will be the great day. I couldn’t follow everything he said, but I had the feeling I’d never see Mrs Dávila again.

That evening she came to pay me a final visit. She got undressed, loosened her hair, which fell down her back like a flurry of small spiders. She combed it, then put on a pearl necklace he’d given her before they got married.

Next I see her open the drawer in the cabinet. Take out some scissors. Turn off the light.

I feel the bathtub slowly filling, the steam clogging my pores. I hear a whimper. What the hell is going on?

My God, would someone turn on the light? I feel her right elbow weighing down on top of me. If I had hands, I’d embrace her; if I had a voice, I’d shout out loud. Tell her husband to come. I no longer feel the light weight of her arm, which drops down into the water.

When the light finally goes on, I think I’m going to die. All her inside, sweet and red as cherries, has soaked the floor, the tiles – beautiful spasms of her which run all the way down me. It’s her permanent smile, her empty eyes, I won’t forget.

Mr Dávila comes in and takes her in his arms. Her head, drooping to one side, hits the door frame as he leaves the bathroom.

After a moment he comes back in on his own, checks the tub. His piggish face contorts into a grimace, a mixture of relief and disgust. His nightmare is finally over. And he didn’t even have to do anything.

It’s then I reach a decision. I decide it cannot stay like this.

The days go by. While I plan my revenge, I send my most diligent spores to his razors; perhaps they’ll go rusty, he might even get tetanus. I also fill the drainpipe with my fungal tentacles so that every time he turns on the tap, the bathroom floods.

At night I huddle in my corner, hoping she’ll come back with her torch and caress me. But no, she never comes back. One week goes by, then another, and another. One night I decide Mr Dávila won’t get up the following morning without paying me for what he’s stolen.

My ranks are depleted, but I gather my gelatinous strength and, with a superhuman effort, stretch as far as I can to the wall I’m missing. Then I try to bridge the decisive gap separating me from the damp patch that has conveniently appeared where the leak is, and there I absorb as much as I can by way of provisions. I inflate my mouldy pores, breathe in and drag myself across the tiles with discretion. The tap drip-drips into the tub.

I can hear him snoring in the other room. He sounds like a huge pig grunting at the back of a cave. I think of Mrs Dávila, and this gives me strength. I can see his callused feet hanging off the bed. They move a bit when I touch them. The stuffy atmosphere in the room affords me some refreshment.

I slowly make my way up the sheets, along his body, until I reach his sweaty neck. I have to admit I never would have made it had it not been for the mould along the edges of the dirty sheet, a real culture in need.

I rest a little on the damp curve of his lips, and then ever so slowly introduce my tentacles into his mouth. Slip down his throat. It’s not bad here, nice and warm and fluffy. I might even change residence.

I stick to the walls of his mouth and trachea, absorbing as much dampness as I can. He clears his throat. I distend my mouldy fingers, inflate them again and again. It’s all over, mister. He has difficulty breathing. The way he coughs and retches makes him convulse.He doesn’t even have time to wake up.

Translated from the Spanish by Jonathan Dunne.

Nina Melero is a translator and writer. She teaches Spanish and Translation Studies at Kingston University and at the University of Westminster. Her publications include research articles on applied translation theory and literary translation as well as short stories, some of which have been awarded literary prizes (Art Nalon Letras 2007, Planeta Jóvenes Talentos 2005 and 2007). Tenebrario is her latest collection of short stories. Nina is currently completing her next book, Messiah 2.0, a cyberpunk novel about inhumanity and the non-human. You can find out more about Nina at her website, www.ninamelero.com and her work is available to purchase from the European Bookshop.

Litro has always had a keen interest in short fiction in languages other than English, as well as stories from other cultures. We’re not entirely averse to the darker side of fiction either. So we are pleased to be present at ‘Nightmares in The European Bookshop – presentation, interview and reading of Tenebrario‘  on the 18th October. This event at the European Bookshop starts at 6.30pm and will not only feature a reading of Tenebrario: doce pesadillas y un escalofrío by Nina Melero, but also a live interview with Nina, conducted by Litro Editor Katy Darby!

Please see the European Bookshop’s blog for more details. For those of you who can’t make it, we will be publishing the interview right here on litro.co.uk. If you are free, please do come along for what should be an intriguing, potentially (and hopefully pleasantly!) shiver-inducing evening. We may also have copies of the latest issue on hand at the event, so keep an eye out for them.