The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate
A reimagining of Dracula’s voyage to England, filled with Gothic imagery and queer desire.
It’s an ordinary assignment, nothing more. The cargo? Fifty boxes filled with Transylvanian soil. The route? From Varna to Whitby. The Demeter has made many trips like this. The captain has handled dozens of crews.
He dreams familiar dreams: to taste the salt on the skin of his men, to run his hands across their chests. He longs for the warmth of a lover he cannot have, fantasizes about flesh and frenzied embraces. All this he’s done before, it’s routine, a constant, like the tides.
Yet there’s something different, something wrong. There are odd nightmares, unsettling omens and fear. For there is something in the air, something in the night, someone stalking the ship.
The cult vampire novella by Mexican author José Luis Zárate is available for the first time in English. Translated by David Bowles and with an accompanying essay by noted horror author Poppy Z. Brite, it reveals an unknown corner of Latin American literature.
Representation Includes
- Eastern European gay male protagonist
Content Warnings
Homophobia and homophobic violence; internalized homophobia and self-hatred; graphic sexual content; dubious-consent relationships; fantasies involving sexual assault; stereotypical portrayals and racial epithets of Romani/North African people; disease; swarms of rats; general feeling of fear, hopelessness, and despairReviews
Where to Find
Details
- Translated by David Bowles
- Original title: La ruta del hielo y la sal
- English edition published January 19th 2021 (first published 1998)
- Paperback ISBN13: 9781927990292