Cockfight

By María Fernanda Ampuero and Frances Riddle

This Ecuadorian short story collection explores domestic horrors and everyday violence, a "grotesque, unflinching" portrait of twenty-first-century Latin America (Publishers Weekly).

“Ampuero’s literary voice is tough and beautiful at once: her stories are exquisite and dangerous objects.” —Yuri Herrera, author of Signs Preceding the End of the World

Named one of the ten best fiction books of 2018 by the New York Times en Español, Cockfight is the debut work by Ecuadorian writer and journalist María Fernanda Ampuero.

In lucid and compelling prose, Ampuero sheds light on the hidden aspects of the home: the grotesque realities of family, coming of age, religion, and class struggle. A family’s maids witness a horrible cycle of abuse, a girl is auctioned off by a gang of criminals, and two sisters find themselves at the mercy of their spiteful brother. With violence masquerading as love, characters spend their lives trapped reenacting their past traumas.

Heralding a brutal and singular new voice, Cockfight explores the power of the home to both create and destroy those within it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
• Release date: Jun 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781936932832

María Fernanda Ampuero

María Fernanda Ampuero nació en Guayaquil, Ecuador, en 1976 y estudió literatura. Colabora con numerosos medios internacionales y hasta la fecha ha publicado dos libros de crónicas, Lo que aprendí en la peluquería (2011) y Permiso de residencia (2013). Su trabajo periodístico ha recibido varios galardones, entre ellos el Premio Ciespal de Crónica por “¿Que no ves que estamos en crisis?” y el de la Organización Internacional de las Migraciones (OIM) a la Mejor Crónica del año por “El Mercado de Babel”. En 2016 ganó el premio Cosecha Eñe de relato por “Nam”. Ha publicado dos libros de cuentos: Pelea de Gallos (2018) y Sacrificios humanos (2021). Ha sido traducida al inglés, portugués e italiano y actualmente es una de las voces más importantes de la literatura latinoamericana actual.

Book preview

AUCTION

There are roosters around here somewhere.

Kneeling, with my head down and covered by a filthy rag, I concentrate on hearing them: how many there are, if they’re in cages or inside a pen. When I was young, my dad raised gamecocks, and since there wasn’t anyone else to look after me, he’d take me along to the fights. The first few times, I cried when I saw the poor rooster ripped to shreds in the sand, and he laughed and called me a girl.

At night, giant vampire roosters devoured my insides. I would scream and he’d come running to my bed, and again he’d call me a girl.

Come on, don’t be such a girl. They’re just roosters, dammit.

Eventually I stopped crying when I saw the hot guts of the losing rooster in the dust. I was the one who had to clean up the ball of feathers and viscera and carry it all to the trash bin. I would say: Bye-bye, rooster. Be happy in heaven where there are thousands of worms and fields and corn and families that love roosters. On the way, some cockfighter would give me a piece of candy or a coin to touch me or kiss me, or for me to touch him or kiss him. I was afraid that if I told Dad, he’d call me a girl again.

Come on, don’t be such a girl. They’re just cockfighters, dammit.

One night, a rooster’s belly exploded as I was carrying it in my arms like a doll, and I discovered that those macho men who shouted and jeered for one rooster to rip open the other were disgusted by the shit and blood and guts of the dead rooster. So I covered my hands, my knees, and my face with that mixture, and they didn’t bother me with kisses and all that bullshit anymore.

They said to my dad, Your daughter is a monster.

And he responded that they were the monsters and they clinked their shot glasses.

You guys are the monsters. Salud.

The smell inside the cockpit was disgusting. Sometimes when I fell asleep in a corner, under the stands, I’d wake up with one of those men peeking underneath my school uniform at my underwear. So before falling asleep I would stick a rooster head between my legs. One, sometimes more. A whole belt of rooster heads. Those macho guys didn’t like lifting up a skirt to find little severed heads.

Sometimes, Dad would wake me up to clear away a gutted rooster. Sometimes, he did the cleaning himself, and his friends called him a faggot, asked him why the hell he even bothered to bring his daughter. He just gathered up the ruined and bloody rooster. Then from the door he blew them a kiss. His friends laughed.

I know that here, somewhere, there are roosters because I’d recognize that smell from a thousand miles away. The smell of my life, the smell of my father. It smells of blood, of man, of shit, of cheap liquor, of sour sweat and industrial grease. You don’t exactly have to be a genius to gather that this is some abandoned place, hidden away god knows where, and that I’m totally fucked.

A man speaks. He must be around forty. I imagine him fat, bald, and dirty, wearing a sleeveless white undershirt, shorts, and flip-flops; I imagine his pinkie and thumb nails are long. I can tell by the way he’s speaking that there are other people here. There’s someone else here besides me. There are other people on their knees, with their heads bent, covered by dark, disgusting sacks.

"Come on now, let’s all calm down—the first sonofabitch who makes a sound is gonna get a bullet in his head. If you all cooperate, we’ll all make it through the night in one piece."

I feel his stomach brush against my head and then the barrel of a gun. No, he’s not joking.

A girl cries a few feet to my right. I suppose she couldn’t handle the feeling of the gun to her temple. The sound of a slap.

Look, princess. No crying, you hear me? Or are you in a big hurry to meet your maker?

Later, the fat man with the gun walks away. He’s gone to talk on the phone. He says a number: Six, six motherfuckers. He also says, It’s a good haul, really good, the best in months. He says they won’t want to miss it. He makes one call after another. He forgets, for a while, about us.

Beside me I hear a cough muffled by a hood, a man’s cough.

I’ve heard about this, he says, very softly. I thought it was a myth, an urban legend. They’re called auctions. Taxi drivers choose passengers they think they’ll be able to get good money for and they kidnap them. Then buyers come and bid on their favorites. And they take them. They keep their things, they force them to steal, to open up their houses, to give them their credit card numbers. And the women … the women.

What? I ask.

He hears that I’m a woman. He goes quiet.

The first thing I thought when I got in the taxi that night was finally. I rested my head on the seat and closed my eyes. I’d had several drinks and I was depressed. I’d been at the bar with a man I pretended to be friends with. With him and his wife. I always pretend, I’m good at pretending. But when I got in the taxi, I sighed and said to myself, What a relief: now I can go home and cry myself to sleep. I think I dozed off for a minute, and suddenly, when I opened my eyes, I was in an unfamiliar place. An industrial area. Empty. Darkness. Mind-numbing fear: someone was about to fuck up my life forever.

The taxi driver pulled out a gun, looked me in the eye, and said with absurd politeness: We’ve reached your destination, miss.

What followed was quick. Someone opened the door before I could lock it and put a sack over my head, they tied my hands, shoved me into this sort of garage that smelled like a rotting cockpit, and made me kneel in a corner.

The sound of conversations. The fat man and someone else and then someone else and someone else. People keep coming. The sound of laughter and beers being opened. The scent of weed and some other shit with a spicy smell. The man next to me finally stops telling me to keep calm. He must be saying it to himself now.

He mentioned before that he has an eight-month-old baby and a three-year-old son. He must be thinking about them. And about these junkies getting inside the gated community where they live. That must be what he’s thinking about. About waving to the guard to open the gate while these beasts duck down in the back seat. He’s going to take them home to meet his beautiful wife, his eight-month-old baby, and his three-year-old son. He’s going to take them to his house.

And there’s nothing he can do about it.

Farther away, to the right, murmuring, a girl cries, I don’t know if it’s the same one who was crying before. The fat man fires his gun and we all drop to the floor. He hasn’t shot us, he’s just shot. It doesn’t matter, the terror has ripped us in half. He and his friends laugh. They come over, they move us into the center of the room.

All right, gentlemen, ladies, tonight’s auction is officially open. They’re all so lovely, so wellbehaved. Now, you stand here for me. Closer, princess. Riiiiight there. Don’t be afraid, little lady, I don’t bite. Just like that. So these gentlemen can decide which one of you they’re going to take. The rules are the same as always, gentlemen: the most money gets the best prize. If you could leave your guns over here for me, I’ll keep them safe till the auction’s over. Thank you. Delighted, as always, to have you.

The fat man presents us like he’s hosting a TV show. We can’t see the audience, but we know the men who are looking at us, sizing us up, are thieves. And rapists. They are definitely rapists. And murderers. They might be murderers. Or something worse.

Laaaaaaadies and geeeeeeeentlemen!

The fat man doesn’t like the ones who whimper or the ones who say they have kids or the ones who shout desperately, You don’t know who you’re messing with! No. He likes even less the ones who say he’s going to rot in jail. All these people, men and women alike, have been punched in the gut. I’ve heard them fall to the floor breathless. I focus on the roosters. Maybe there aren’t any. But I hear them. Inside me. Men and roosters. Come on, don’t be such a girl. They’re just cockfighters, dammit.

"This man, what’s our first participant’s name? What? Speak up, friend. Ricardoooooo, welcoooome. He wears a nice watch and some niiiiiice Adidas shoes. Ricardooooo must

Reviews for Cockfight

[aridipi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Stories that hug you and suddenly let you go, without warning. That's how the endings are—abrupt, sudden, filled with anguish, hatred, or love. Scenes that give you tingles and that you often wish to breeze through, but that come back to you, asking for help, or that the morbid curiosity of rereading them demands you to do so. (Translated from Spanish)

[Andre1989 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is clear to us that human beings are capable of all conceivable atrocities. María Fernanda Ampuero introduces us to her little book with stories of murky everyday experiences, some of which end up being brutal.
We all have monsters under the bed, we all have fear, which has nothing to do with the supernatural, but rather with violence; we have all danced on both sides, and it is almost always difficult to see reality, hard to look and accept what is happening around us.
But the author wants you to feel part of this life that you sometimes deny and divert your gaze from through her narrative.
These stories are authentic wails that accuse a rotten society in which we find ourselves. They are devastating, not kind, and stab at the heart.
Life itself.
? (Translated from Spanish)

[MagalyProcopio · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are thirteen stories, all very short, and the vast majority reflect the violence experienced in society. Some are more brutal than others, but all impact in some way. Here, the monsters are families, neighbors, friends, or couples.
The story that impacted me the most was: Auction: (Translated from Spanish)

[Edd62 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is something that transcends the boundary of reality, in its lowest and inhuman form; it is cruel, harsh, going beyond mere discomfort. This collection of stories leaves deeper scars than those of its protagonists.

Denying it, denying oneself is merely continuing to normalize situations that have escaped degradation, the denigration of human beings by other human beings.

It is a violent way of confronting the multiple ways of causing harm simply because it can be done.

Its association with cockfighting is only present in the first story, but Ampuero is mistaken to assign it to an act related to masculinity; cruelty has no gender.

And just as she stated in an interview, “I wrote these stories screaming in pain,” that’s how I have read them; no, they are not comfortable; worse yet, they are very real, anywhere on the planet, any day, at any hour. (Translated from Spanish)

[JesusMP?? · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It is the first time I read something by María Fernanda Ampuero, and I can only say that I was fascinated; the stories in this book are raw but real, and the best of all is NAM. I loved it. (Translated from Spanish)

[ClaudiaLo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

She is a very good writer, but I didn't like the stories; they are very grotesque. I'm not saying they are bad, I just don't like them. (Translated from Spanish)

[Kei Meléndez · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The rawness of this book is a complete hook, feeling how each word, when placed next to the other, churned my insides and my heart. We always try to see the pretty side of things, but the author comes with this book and shows us what we don't want to see or think about, what we close our eyes to is now placed right in front of our noses and in the middle of our brains, there is no escape among the pages. (Translated from Spanish)

[Yisnabook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reading María Fernanda Ampuero is reading with starkness everything we wish to hide due to discomfort or fear. It is confronting the mud of society, religion, family, or friends. With an incredible pen, she gifts us these stories that, although not an easy read, are a reading that awakens consciousness and confronts the violence of everyday life.

Unlike Human Sacrifices, Rooster Skinning does not contain this veil of terror or suspense, but it has much allusion to family and religion. (Translated from Spanish)

[Sombra Gris · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Like all of María Fernanda Ampuero's works, it shows us human misery in its fullest splendor; the brutality of our everyday lives, and everything that rots and forms a family. The monstrous and the human mix and merge in fantastic and brutal tales. An upside-down world, where one must be a monster to save their life. With a very powerful social critique. Highly recommended. (Translated from Spanish)

[ASF1984 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Cockfight is made up of 13 harsh stories that are difficult to digest, but sadly real, and therein lies their strength. A brutal book filled with violent and unpleasant situations experienced by women and children. The rhythm used to narrate these stories is magnificent. The repetitions of certain words, the sounds, the smells, the bodies, the voices, the context. This is the first book I've read by Má. Fernanda Ampuero and I really liked it. (Translated from Spanish)

[Hercules · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This mother is cool, it tackles strong themes in a good way, without fear of success, but I feel like something was missing. Only 2 or 3 stories left me like: ? HELLO? Police? What is this!?
I liked it, I enjoyed it, I think it deserves a second chance but in physical form, because I listened to it as an audiobook (I will return to talk about the experience with the physical book)
I recommend it anyway. (Translated from Spanish)

[LaPolli · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I came to the book through recommendations. When I got it, I was disappointed to see that it had few pages and that the stories were quite short. However, they are short stories that I needed to read slowly. Unlike other books I have read in one go, this one took me a while. I couldn't read more than two stories in a row; I had to put it down for a few days and then continue, as they are hard-hitting stories that impact and discomfort. María Fernanda Ampuero narrates in this book those stories that are whispered and cause horror, telling us the miseries of people and the indifference, the things that are better left hidden. I liked it and hope to read more from this author. (Translated from Spanish)

[Marien Vega · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I started reading this book because of the multiple recommendations it has, but the truth is I have little time to waste reading filth, and no, I didn't finish it. It's what I call "coprolalic literature" or copronovel. And it's not that I'm unaware that these things exist, but filling my mind with dirt is not my style. (Translated from Spanish)

[Pilar Carbonell · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I know it’s a very well-written collection of stories, but it’s not my style, all that dirtiness, ugliness, decay, humiliation, abuse to extreme physical and psychological consequences... I just can’t handle this literature. I know it exists, but I haven’t enjoyed it at all; in fact, I haven’t even been able to savor the few stories that aren’t gruesome. (Translated from Spanish)

[G. Munckel · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In these stories, family is presented as a hell: home is where people begin to break apart. In that contrast between the protection expected from family and the secret cruelty that can occur within it, Ampuero finds the material to create terror. Because terror has many facets, and this book explores that territory where horror mixes with violence, and violence with sexuality. In these stories, there is a lot of violence, especially sexual, which Ampuero denounces (and perhaps his intention is too noticeable); but there is also a twisted sexuality — that of his best stories — whose roots always lead back to the wounds of home: the origin of the monstrous in the human condition. My favorites: "Nam" and "Persianas." (Translated from Spanish)

[NesstD · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Let’s be clear that I have nothing against the author; however, this book is undoubtedly aimed at "a specific audience" of which I am NOT A PART.

Yes, it is a book with stories of women who suffer, cry, implore, and seek comfort in that sordid silence that characterizes all of Latin America. And then? What more does it contribute? Where is the incredible? And perhaps my review will upset more than one person, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been written before, nothing we don’t already know is wrong and that we should fight for change. But why is the mission of books like this always to create a false "awareness"?

In my opinion, it stopped being good when they told the stories with "Hints of fantastic tales," taking away the rawness, the reality, what could have made this book break the silence...

Without a doubt, an "EXCLUSIVE FOR WOMEN" book, for me A WASTE OF TIME. (Translated from Spanish)

[Sleaze · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A pleasant surprise and a delightful discovery. A raw portrait of the different realities of women in Latin America, short but powerful stories, straightforward, impactful.

It results in a series of stories that do not leave one indifferent; you will reflect or think about something upon finishing each one.

I hope to read more from the author. (Translated from Spanish)

[Rogrigionirolectora · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In these tales, horror is closer, more brutal, and fearsome because it emanates from the family environment. Relatives and friends project themselves as dangers because violence, abuse, prejudice, and fanaticism lurk there.
Another collection of monsters frightens us, not due to exaggerated fantasy but because of its possible and brutal share of reality. Dependency, pain, desire, vulnerability, and all their sufferings are well reflected by the talent of this writer who is capable of taking us to "the deepest darkness."
Very good!

➡️ My favorites: Auction, Nam, Monsters, Passion, and Mourning. (Translated from Spanish)

[MargariLen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Over and over again, the word that repeats in my head when I think about this book of stories is raw. Everything is raw in it: the themes, the scenes, the characters, the narration itself... There is a savoring of the dirtiness of reality, in showing it in a bleeding way, in magnifying, as if the author were using a microscope, the horrifying, the unconfessable, the moral miseries, contrary to what we usually do when we try to hide all that garbage under the carpet or ignore it thinking that if we don't pay attention, it will stop being there. A disquieting read, but completely advisable for those who like a book to stir them. (Translated from Spanish)

[Pilar1970 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is a hard, cruel book of stories, many of which are shocking to read. It's easy to read, it grabs you and you can't stop reading. The two stories in which passages from the New Testament are "rewritten" are very interesting. I certainly liked it and I recommend it. (Translated from Spanish)

[FJSA · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First book I read by this Ecuadorian writer. Fluid narrative and structure in the form of short stories whose common denominator is to expose the hidden violence and human baseness that manifest there, in the basic nucleus of society: the family. "Cock Fight" is the first story that titles the book, but in my opinion, it is not only a literal allusion to the (ferocious) competitions of these poor animals. It also refers to "roosters," the symbol of a macho society whose relationships of domination and discrimination among human beings, particularly against women, are justified by moral and religious codes that are as "normal" as they are unjust and even perverse. The reading could be tedious at times; the originality and frankness in addressing sordid issues could be the best product. I give it 4 stars. FS/11-04-2021. (Translated from Spanish)

[booksvaru · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rooster fight is an anthology book. It narrates stories full of violence from different voices. I found this book super interesting; it does not throw universal violence-laden stories in your face without validating the sensitivity that the reader may have. The more you progress through the narratives, the darker it all becomes (and it starts off strong). (Translated from Spanish)

[MilenaHrz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved it, a book of fascinating and macabre anthologies, filled with violent and intense stories, but without a doubt one of the best I have read. (Translated from Spanish)

[Daniela Gonzalez C · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Uncomfortable stories, of course, violence has always been this way, uncomfortable. (Translated from Spanish)

[Lucas248 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent anthology book. María Fernanda Ampuero's work consists of 13 tales of rawness and terrible impact. Themes like family, abuse, and violence are recurrent in the author's excellent narratives. Most of the stories are narrated by female voices that reveal a world filled with misogyny, pain, and suffering. These are situations that can be extrapolated to any region of Latin America. Special mention should be made of the underlying terror in each story, a terror that seeps through the everyday, through what is socially "normal." A tough but essential and necessary anthology because it showcases situations of violence suffered by women and girls. Highly recommended. (Translated from Spanish)

[FtimaAM13 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Grotesque, harsh, and raw, such are the stories that emerge from the pen of María Fernanda Ampuero; they recount real scenarios with the brutality and intensity with which they escalate; showing us the idiosyncrasy of a putrid society, whose roots are eaten away by violence and whose fruits are nothing more than the result of the mutilation of humanity in man. Without a doubt, Ampuero exceptionally illustrates the universality of violence, which is the same here and there, mainly presenting it through feminine eyes, reclaiming the perspective of that gender in the face of violence, both as a receiver and as an initiator of it. An extraordinary work that, without regard to the sensitivity of the reader, opens our eyes to a reality as familiar as our own reflection. (Translated from Spanish)

[roinfame · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very dark and gripping. (Translated from Spanish)

[Angela · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting stories, some dark but invite reflection. Páginas de espuma does not disappoint. (Translated from Spanish)

[jaimegarba · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredible. The best short story collection I've read this year. Stories of women's reclamation under the portrait of the horror they endure, such as violence, abuse, and devaluation... All the stories are brutal. Highly recommended. Great author. (Translated from Spanish)