Cockfight

By María Fernanda Ampuero

‘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 re-enacting 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: Influx Press
• Release date: Jan 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781910312827

María Fernanda Ampuero

María Fernanda Ampuero is a writer and journalist born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 1976. Cockfight, her first book to be translated into English, was published by Influx Press in 2021.