The Sanctuary: A Novel

Treading the line between crime thriller, detective story, and horror novel, The Sanctuary is a chilling portrayal of an upside down world, where evil is the norm and spaces once considered safe havens hold unimaginable terror.When their car breaks down outside of the small Argentinian village of Los Huemules, indie filmmaker Álvaro and his wife, muse, and lead actress Alicia consider it a minor inconvenience. Seeking shelter in the town's lone motel, they settle in for a night of decadent fun, but after Alicia disappears without a trace the following morning, Álvaro embarks on an increasingly desperate quest to find her. Armed only with a video camera and with a growing sense of dread, Álvaro begins gradually uncovering the town's many dark secrets, with each revelation being more horrific than the last. “Comparable to a David Lynch nightmare.”

About the Author

Writer and Psychiatrist Gustavo Eduardo Abrevaya was born in Buenos Aires in 1952. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He is the author of the novels El Criadero, Los Infernautas, and The Envoy (with Leonardo Killian). In 2020, he was selected as a permanent juror for the noir novel competition of the Black Mountain Bossost Festival in Bossost, Spain. He is currently working on a series of novels about a war between police officers. El Criadero was originally published in Spain, where it won the 2002 José Boris Spivacow Award, and was subsequently published in Argentina and Cuba. Appearing here as The Sanctuary, it marks Abrevaya’s first translation into English. Andrea G. Labinger has published numerous translations of Latin American fiction. Gesell Dome, her translation of Guillermo Saccomanno's noir novel Cámara Gesell (Open Letter 2016), won a PEN/Heim Translation Award and was long-listed for the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses' Firecracker Award. She also translated Saccomanno’s 77 (Open Letter 2019). She previously translated Patricia Ratto’s Proceed With Caution (2021) for Schaffner Press.

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