Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva, trans. Rahul Bery

In twenty-third century Argentina, where climate change and speculative finance have changed the world forever, a single mother gives birth to an insect-like child. An object of disgust, Dengue Boy is marked from birth as an outcast. Beset by a sudden thirst for blood, which only female mosquitoes possess, Dengue Boy realizes in adolescence that she is really Dengue Girl and sets out to exact her revenge on the wealthy people and tourists for whom her mother toils tirelessly. At the same time, smugglers attempt to excavate a substance that holds a powerful and dangerous force; Antarctica is a tropical resort locale and refuge for nearly-extinct animals; an addictively violent video game has captured the world’s youth; the economy is based on predicting – and profiting from – pandemics. Across this backdrop, Dengue Girl’s diseased rampage begins.

This is an exuberant and deeply horrifying speculative tale, an allegory for capitalism, colonialism, and extractivism. Dengue Girl represents a rupture of norms: she exceeds prescriptive gender roles (and she can certainly be read as trans) and becomes simultaneously an object of disgust, transformation, and power. Mosquitoes are, of course, the very definition of “bug”: an organism that, from the human perspective, is annoying at best and lethal at worst. And, as Nieva writes, mosquitoes remind people that “something they believed to be wholly theirs, their own, impenetrable epidermis, was in reality covered with uncontrollable and therefore intolerable forms of life”. In Dengue Boy, humanity is atomized, and it takes the most-hated organism of all to remind humans of the interconnectedness of all life. Dengue Girl therefore emerges as, if not a protagonist, a worthy anti-hero, enacting revenge on the political structures that have made her life a misery.

Dengue Girl represents a rupture of norms: she exceeds prescriptive gender roles (and she can certainly be read as trans) and becomes simultaneously an object of disgust, transformation, and power.

Nieva’s vision is expansive, impressive for a novel of just over 200 pages – and a debut, no less! There are numerous plot threads weaving in and out of view, each contributing to themes of dehumanization, disillusionment, greed. It’s absurdist, funny, and increasingly unhinged as time itself begins to collapse along with everything else. Twenty-third century teenagers play a video game re-enacting eighteenth century genocide; the systems of capitalism and colonialism that have circumscribed Dengue Girl’s life are only the logical conclusion of today’s systems pushed to their extreme. Time builds upon itself; time collapses; everything has already happened before, and everything will happen again. The absurd plot combined with the omniscient, matter-of-fact narrator recall Kurt Vonnegut (high praise coming from me), while the body horror is Cronenberg-esque. I could keep going, but excessive comparisons would, ultimately, do Nieva a disservice: in this searing critique of racial capitalism and colonial logics, told through the story of an abjectly queer creature, he has created something all his own. Frequently, speculative fiction fails on some level: its commentary is trite, its worldbuilding weak, its storytelling subservient to its message. When it fulfils its potential, it is a powerful genre – and here Nieva has indeed fulfilled the potentials offered by a genre unbound from the constraints of realism. As a vehicle for social commentary and as a piece of avant-garde art, this debut sings.

The absurd plot combined with the omniscient, matter-of-fact narrator recall Kurt Vonnegut (high praise coming from me), while the body horror is Cronenberg-esque. I could keep going, but excessive comparisons would, ultimately, do Nieva a disservice: in this searing critique of racial capitalism and colonial logics, told through the story of an abjectly queer creature, he has created something all his own.

Michel Nieva was born in 1988 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In his native Spanish he has published several novels, poetry collections and essays. His prose mixes science fiction and speculative genres with Argentinean historical and literary traditions, a blend dubbed gaucho-punk. In 2021 Nieva was named among the best young Spanish writers by Granta magazine. His short story “Dengue Boy” (basis for the novel with the same title), won the O. Henry Award in 2022. Michel lives in New York and teaches Latin American literature at NYU.

Rahul Bery translates from Spanish & Portuguese to English, and is based in Cardiff. He has translated books by David Trueba, Afonso Cruz, Simone Campos and Vicente Luis Mora and his translations have also appeared in Granta, the TLS, the Stinging Fly, Words Without Borders, Freeman’s, the White Review and elsewhere. His most recent translation is What is Mine by José Henrique Bortoluci, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions. His translation of David Trueba’s Rolling Fields was shortlisted for the 2021 TA First Translation Prize.

Publisher: Astra Publishing House (February 4, 2025)
Paperback 7″ x 5″ | 224 pages
ISBN: 9781662602658

Clementine Oberst

Clementine Oberst is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in television studies. Born and raised in Toronto, she has lived in Montreal and Glasgow and now calls Hamilton home. When she isn't writing her dissertation, Clementine can be found knitting, trying to cultivate a green thumb, and playing with her cats. She loves nothing more than losing herself in a good book. You can connect with her on Instagram @clementinereads.