About the Book

"Originally published in Spanish as La semana de colores"--Title page verso.

Book Synopsis

A woman flits between two realities centuries apart, as scenes from the violent conquest of Mexico bleed their way into her comfortable contemporary life. Two little girls visit the home of a sorcerer who tortures women named after the days of the week. Girls become dogs, a laborer hides human bones in bricks he'll use to build a new development, and an old woman appears at an acquaintance's door one night with a knife and a bone-chilling confession.

With The Week of Colors, Elena Garro laid the groundwork for the literary movements that would shape the landscape of Latin American fiction and beyond. Here you'll find the early roots of magical realism, feminist horror, and anticolonial speculative fiction. In The Week of Colors, Garro highlights the violence in our history, our homes, and our hearts, in vivid color.

Review Quotes

"Elena Garro is the Tolstoy of Mexico." --Jorge Luis Borges

"Powerful. Dark. Complex. Books with a basement vault, or a fracture, or both. Nothing is what it seems with Garro; or else everything is something else."--Cristina Rivera Garza

"A brilliant woman of fierce courage." --Samanta Schweblin

"Originally published in 1964, this collection stands as a seminal work prefiguring the surrealist and magical realist movements that would come to define so much of Latin American literature in the decades to come. However, a contemporary reader coming fresh to Garro's work will find a voice that feels as vital today as it ever did. Crucial stories that pierce the heart of the modern world. A must-read."--Kirkus, starred review

"I think she's a brilliant writer, one of those writers who come along once in a hundred years. I think she's the greatest novelist of the 20th century."--César Aira

"Elena Garro: the cursed mother of magical realism."--El Mundo

"Elena is a myth, an icon, a one-of-a-kind woman with enormous talent."--Elena Poniatowska

"Garro's expertly woven stories showcase her boundless imagination and insightful exploration of the entanglement between national and personal histories. Throughout, McDowell perfectly preserves Garro's lyricism. . . . This collection highlights what made the author such a seminal figure in Latin American literature."--Publishers Weekly