AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Cemeteries might not be everyone's idea of fun, but for Argentine author Mariana Enriquez, they're full of life. They're a doorway into history, memory and sometimes the supernatural. Enriquez, known for her chilling fiction, turns to real resting places around the world in her new nonfiction book "Somebody Is Walking On Your Grave," a series of personal short stories she's collected over the years while traveling to cemeteries across four continents. Mariana Enriquez joins us now. Thank you for being here.
MARIANA ENRIQUEZ: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm very glad.
RASCOE: Why are you so interested in cemeteries? They seem like your favorite place to visit.
ENRIQUEZ: The first reason is, I used to be a goth when I was young, like, a goth from age 6 or something.
RASCOE: With the dark hair, dark - wearing black all the time sort of thing.
ENRIQUEZ: Reading Edgar Allen Poe - and then with the years, I learned that also cemeteries have a lot to say about life, about the history of the people. And then Argentina in the '70s, the decade where I was born, had a dictatorship that made a lot of bodies disappear. Therefore, there's a generation of people that were killed by the government, and they don't have a grave.
I realized that that trauma, that is very engraved in my life, somehow made me feel that a grave, a tombstone - it's something of comfort. It's a final thing in a good way. So between the very fun goth kind of thing, there was also a deep reason for all this. And that's why I decided, this could be a book.
RASCOE: In the book, you talk about the burial of your friend's mother, who was disappeared during Argentina's dictatorship. This is a deep philosophical question, but why do you think it matters that we find the body after all that time, that we have the burial? Why does that matter to us so much?
ENRIQUEZ: Because grieving is important. People don't go through that process - is absolutely cruel. We don't know what happens after death, and the only comfort we have is the comfort of grieving, of paying respects, of having a place to go and remember. Memory - it's right.
RASCOE: You visit a lot of cemeteries with all of this history - with colonial settlers, with the marginalized, the disappeared. They're all buried, maybe not side by side. Or I guess, how do you see, like, those distinctions in life - classism and all of this stuff - play out in cemeteries? And is there maybe one cemetery where you felt the contrast most striking?
ENRIQUEZ: Well, in every cemetery, you have, like, the rich at the beginning - or most of the time, the rich at the beginning with the marble, et cetera, the middle class, and then the people on the ground. But sometimes, it's not - it's in different cemeteries - New Orleans, for example.
And then there's, for example, what happens a lot in postcolonial societies like Argentina or Australia. An island in Argentina is called Island Martin Garcia, and an island in Australia is called Rottnest Island - white settlers that have their cemetery with their colonial families saying they came from this-and-this place in Europe. And then you have mostly unmarked, in the case of Australia, for the aboriginals and from the Indigenous people in Argentina.
So yes, you can see it sometimes in the same cemetery, sometimes in two cemeteries in the same town. But it's the same as life. That's what's very striking.
RASCOE: When you're going to these cemeteries, do you often meet people who are - also have the same interests as you in cemeteries? Do you meet fellow travelers?
ENRIQUEZ: I do sometimes. Really, what you meet a lot is what I call peregrines, people that go just to see a special grave, and you are going to visit the same person. And sometimes you recognize each other. Like, we see each other. Yeah, there's a very strange kind - I guess I'm one of those strange people, too. But to me, the others look strange.
RASCOE: (Laughter) Well, you went to the Paris Catacombs to see what remains of the Holy Innocents' Cemetery. But you take a souvenir.
ENRIQUEZ: Oh, that's illegal.
RASCOE: It's in the book, though (laughter).
ENRIQUEZ: I know, but when things are in books, you can always say, well, that's - it's a bit of fiction. I can say that, but this is a nonfiction book, so, you know, whatever. But I went to the Catacombs, and I'm fascinated by this cemetery because it's featured in many, many books I love. And I said, OK, I'm going to take a little bone with me. I mean, I fully respect the people in the catacombs in Paris and stuff, but the security is not great.
RASCOE: Clearly.
ENRIQUEZ: Clearly because it was not difficult to do that.
RASCOE: You may not want to say if you still have it 'cause the authorities may be listening, but what do you think of something like that and the respect for the dead? Do you take that seriously?
ENRIQUEZ: Yes, I - of course, I think that the dead - maybe - it was a moment of insanity.
RASCOE: (Laughter) OK, yes.
ENRIQUEZ: It's very wrong. But since I've been very respectful with it, but I also think taking it more lightly - that sometimes I think, when I'm doing these investigations and, you know, walking there and taking my notes and seeing what's written on the graves and the fact that the dead are so lonely, sometimes I think that, yes - that you can be a bit less solemn and respectful and go there and have some - have a coke and have a chat. They were people. They are people, and I think they would like a friend. It sounds weird, but it's not. I wouldn't like to be there lonely forever.
RASCOE: 'Cause you could have some joy. Yeah, you could have some joy around you. Do you know where you want to be buried? I think you talk about this in the book. And how did you decide?
ENRIQUEZ: The cemetery of Recoleta in Buenos Aires where Eva Peron is buried, among other people, but the most famous is Eva Peron, Evita. It's a very aristocratic cemetery. Therefore, you only can be buried there if you are a member of one of those aristocratic families, which I'm not. Since I'm not an aristocratic person, I have to occupy that. And the only way to occupy the cemetery is, you know, to have someone put my ashes there. And I want them to be thrown in a grave that - it's a pyramid that says, there's nothing here, only dust and bones, nothing.
RASCOE: That's Mariana Enriquez. Her new book, "Somebody Is Walking On Your Grave," comes out on Tuesday. Thank you so much for joining us.
ENRIQUEZ: No, thank you. It was great. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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