A New Latiné Horror Anthology Weaves Ghost Stories From the Weight of History
Finn's Take· TL;DR- Landmark Latiné horror anthology uses ghost stories to explore inherited historical trauma from colonization and immigration across generations. All-Latiné editorial team and star-studded contributor roster including bestsellers and award winners signals long-overdue spotlight for genre representation. Bilingual Spanish-English release demonstrates collection built for community, weaving supernatural elements with deeply political examinations of diaspora and cultural memory.
Horror Born From History
Some of the most chilling ghost stories aren't invented — they're inherited. That's the animating idea behind Something Followed Us Home: Tales of Latiné Horror, a landmark anthology that arrived on September 29, 2026. Edited by Bram Stoker Award winner Cynthia Pelayo, the collection reimagines immigration, colonization, faith, and folklore as fears we inherit and carry across borders and generations. The result is a book that uses the language of horror to say things that history books rarely do.
Published by Atria/Primero Sueño Press — a relatively new but internationally well-connected Simon & Schuster imprint — the anthology is a splendid collection of seventeen stories that expands not only Pelayo's reach, but also the reach of other talented contributors. The book was released simultaneously in Spanish and English, with a significant amount of the content offered in translation, whichever option the reader chooses. That bilingual commitment alone signals something different: this is a collection built for a community, not just about one.
The Editor's Own Story: Spirits, Sugarcane, and Puerto Rico
Pelayo herself contributes the poignant "El Jíbaro de Puerto Rico," in which a grandfather — also a spiritual medium — lives with his granddaughter, Victoria, as they prepare for "the last misa," a table reading where the living can speak with the dead. It's a story that fuses the supernatural with the deeply political. What they witness is the heavy hand of American territorial ambition and its effects on the people of Puerto Rico — and the story ends with one of the anthology's rare twists.
Pelayo's adept use of time travel lends a pre-civilization feel to the setting, and she stuffs the sorry history of Puerto Rico's abuse at the hands of the United States into the ghost of a meek child. Within the story, the grandfather explains a spiritual tradition with deep roots: Allan Kardec was an author and educator whose teachings came to Puerto Rico from France in the 1850s, developing a science called spiritism — a process for the living to communicate with the dead. The first séance happened in San Juan around that very same time, and at first the practice was used mostly by the wealthy, who were described as good people: they founded hospitals, promoted literacy, fought against the death penalty, and pushed for better social conditions. From there, the tradition spread and transformed, becoming the cultural practice known as espiritismo.
A Who's Who of Latiné Dark Fiction
The anthology was put together by an all-Latiné team and includes stories by international bestsellers, USA Today bestsellers, New York Times bestsellers, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, National Book Awards finalists, and PEN Award winners. Contributors include Agustina Bazterrica, Isabel Cañas, Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Zoraida Córdova, Ann Dávila Cardinal, Mariana Enriquez, Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro, Xochitl Gonzalez, Leopoldo Goût, Ananda Lima, Juan Martinez, Mónica Ojeda, Daniel José Older, Lilliam Rivera, Diana Rodriguez Wallach, and Alex Segura. That roster reads like a dream team for readers who have long argued that Latiné authors deserve more space in the horror genre's spotlight.
The seventeen stories are as different as the authors themselves: Agustina Bazterrica presents a chilling and heartbreaking story of a family's pain, while Ann Dávila Cardinal's diaspora satire will make readers laugh and gasp, and Lilliam Rivera's standout tale of body horror, anger, and retribution across generations and countries draws comparisons to Stephen Graham Jones. Supernatural events layered poignantly onto colonial or immigrant experience is a common thread running through the collection.
Why This Anthology Matters Now
The anthology is described as "groundbreaking" — a collection where each story reimagines immigration, colonization, faith, and folklore as the fears we inherit and carry across borders and generations. Horror, at its best, has always been a vessel for truths too raw for polite conversation. What Pelayo has assembled here is a chorus of voices proving that the genre's most fertile ground may be the unresolved wounds of history — wounds that, as these stories insist, never quite close.
Something Followed Us Home is being called a landmark anthology of Latiné horror — one that reminds readers that the past is never gone, the dead are never silent, and the places we come from will always find their way back to us. For a genre that thrives on what lurks just out of sight, that may be the most honest thing any horror collection has ever promised.