![]() ![]() This violent story is an everyday part of life in these neighborhoods. “But there was nothing macabre or sinister about it,” Enríquez tells us. Throughout the neighborhoods of sprawling Buenos Aires, where many of Enríquez’s stories are set, shrines and altars can be found in his honor, bearing plaster replicas of the saint, often decorated with bright red reminders of his bloody death. When the policeman did as directed and his son was healed, tales of Gauchito Gil’s supernatural powers flourished. Before Gil died, he warned his murderer to pray for him, or else the man’s son would die of a mysterious illness. His death was horrific-tortured over a fire and hung by his feet, eventually his throat was slit. After a stint in the army, Antonio Mamerto Gil Núñez (the saint’s full name) became a Robin Hood figure, beloved by the poor of the country. ![]() Mariana Enríquez opens her debut collection, Things We Lost in the Fire, by recounting the story of Gauchito Gil, a popular saint in Argentina. ![]()
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