
Ideas Mexican fiction turns drug kingpins into vicious vampires
Oct 31, 2025
In this captivating discussion, Alejandro Soifer, a PhD graduate exploring Mexican Gothic literature, joins novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia, known for her blend of Gothic and Mexican themes, alongside Yuri Herrera, who delves into power dynamics within narco-worlds. They analyze how Gothic horror and trauma intertwine in contemporary fiction, particularly the vampiric representations of drug violence. Osvaldo Zavala critiques the political narratives around cartels, revealing how fiction both mirrors and challenges perceptions of violence in Mexico's socio-political landscape.
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Gothic Fiction Frames Social Trauma
- Mexican Gothic fiction uses monsters to process social and political trauma in ways realism cannot reach.
- Alejandro Soifer argues these gothic tropes reveal how fiction shapes public understanding of violence.
Narco-Vampires in Certain Dark Things
- Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Certain Dark Things imagines narco-vampire turf wars inside Mexico City.
- She frames Mexican vampires as indigenous priestesses and European vampires as colonizing invaders.
Reversing Gothic Colonial Roles
- Mexican Gothic reverses classic Gothic roles by centering a Mexican heroine against a British colonial family.
- Silvia Moreno-Garcia uses that inversion to make colonialism explicit in the horror.








