Winner of the 2020 Mauricio Achar Award
Does evil lurk in the shadows of the forest or within the human heart? Eduardo Sangarcía’s tale of one woman’s trial opens the door to deeper horrors.
Anna Thalberg is a villager shunned for her red hair and provocative beauty, so when she is dragged from her home and accused of witchcraft, her neighbors do not intervene. Only Klaus, her husband, and Father Friedrich, a priest experiencing a crisis of faith, set out to Würzburg to prove her innocence. There, locked in a prison tower, Anna faces isolation and torture while anxiety builds over strange happenings within the city walls. Can the two men convince the Church inquisitors to release Anna, or will she burn at the stake?
The Trial of Anna Thalberg is a tale of religious persecution, superstition, and suffering during the Protestant Reformation. While mapping the medieval fear of occultism and demons, it delves into enduring human concerns: the oppression of women, the inhumanity of institutions, and the question of God’s existence. Frantic in pace and experimental in form, this is an unforgettable debut from Mexican author Eduardo Sangarcía.
Genre: Horror
Does evil lurk in the shadows of the forest or within the human heart? Eduardo Sangarcía’s tale of one woman’s trial opens the door to deeper horrors.
Anna Thalberg is a villager shunned for her red hair and provocative beauty, so when she is dragged from her home and accused of witchcraft, her neighbors do not intervene. Only Klaus, her husband, and Father Friedrich, a priest experiencing a crisis of faith, set out to Würzburg to prove her innocence. There, locked in a prison tower, Anna faces isolation and torture while anxiety builds over strange happenings within the city walls. Can the two men convince the Church inquisitors to release Anna, or will she burn at the stake?
The Trial of Anna Thalberg is a tale of religious persecution, superstition, and suffering during the Protestant Reformation. While mapping the medieval fear of occultism and demons, it delves into enduring human concerns: the oppression of women, the inhumanity of institutions, and the question of God’s existence. Frantic in pace and experimental in form, this is an unforgettable debut from Mexican author Eduardo Sangarcía.
Genre: Horror
Praise for this book
"A merciless chronicle of witchcraft trials that is more than a mere testimony of the times: it is also a trial of the violence that has historically been exercised against women. With a coven of torrential voices, Eduardo Sangarcia lays bare the unreasonableness of a past that also speaks of our present." - Juan Gómez Bárcena
"Eduardo Sangarcia's writing blends a sophisticated feeling for history with penetrating intuition about human consciousness to conjure elegant nightmares. One of the most attractive voices of contemporary Mexican literature." - Julián Herbert
"As bleak as it is beautiful. Sangarcia has given us a story that is breathlessly told, formally innovative, and lays bare our all-too-common tendency towards cruelty, while never foregoing his own humanity. Welcome to a new, luminous voice in literature." - Elizabeth Gonzalez James
"A novel that can be read with great emotion and great suspense, written with impressive formal virtuosity." - Fernanda Melchor
"A marvelous work that challenges the reader on multiple levels and communicates directly with our present." - Cristina Rivera-Garza
"With an audacious style, a singular use of juxtaposed dialogue, and a structure reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Eduardo Sangarcia achieves a narrative feat that keeps us hooked until the very last line. Although we know what will happen, since he has advertised it from the beginning, we believe in the unexpected, hoping for the miracle to occur. In the end, he both pleases and surprises us, just the way great literature ought to do." - Yoss
"Eduardo Sangarcia's writing blends a sophisticated feeling for history with penetrating intuition about human consciousness to conjure elegant nightmares. One of the most attractive voices of contemporary Mexican literature." - Julián Herbert
"As bleak as it is beautiful. Sangarcia has given us a story that is breathlessly told, formally innovative, and lays bare our all-too-common tendency towards cruelty, while never foregoing his own humanity. Welcome to a new, luminous voice in literature." - Elizabeth Gonzalez James
"A novel that can be read with great emotion and great suspense, written with impressive formal virtuosity." - Fernanda Melchor
"A marvelous work that challenges the reader on multiple levels and communicates directly with our present." - Cristina Rivera-Garza
"With an audacious style, a singular use of juxtaposed dialogue, and a structure reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Eduardo Sangarcia achieves a narrative feat that keeps us hooked until the very last line. Although we know what will happen, since he has advertised it from the beginning, we believe in the unexpected, hoping for the miracle to occur. In the end, he both pleases and surprises us, just the way great literature ought to do." - Yoss
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Used availability for Eduardo Sangarcia's The Trial of Anna Thalberg