Dengue Boy

'Smart, funny and brutal' Mariana Enríquez

Michel Nieva, Rahul Bery

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Paperback

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English

Serpent's Tail
27 May 2025

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Fiction in translation

The year is 2272 and the last of the polar icecaps have melted. New York and Buenos Aires were submerged years ago and the Patagonian Archipelagos have been radically transformed into the only habitable lands on Earth. Here, in the unbearable heat of Victorica, Argentina, our child protagonist is a humanoid mosquito. Carrier of the deadly dengue virus, his monstrous appearance not only makes him a target for his cruel classmates - led by the little tyrant El Dulce - but also elicits disgust from his own mother.

As the world spirals to its end, Dengue Boy searches for the meaning of his life and his true origins. Elsewhere, adults negotiate the value of pandemics on the Stock Exchange and waste the last of Earth's resources, while children more privileged than Dengue Boy plug into virtual realities and constant streams of violent video games. In delirious prose that brings together the picaresque, manga, body horror and cyberpunk, Dengue Boy delivers an extraordinary and bizarre portrait of a demented future.

By: Michel Nieva
Translated by: Rahul Bery
Imprint: Serpent's Tail
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Main
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 130mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 200g
ISBN: 9781805220589
ISBN 10: 1805220586
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 27 May 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Michel Nieva is an Argentinian writer based in New York, where he teaches Writing at NYU. A Granta Best Spanish Young Novelist and also a 2022 O'Henry Prize Winner, Nieva has written short stories and collections of essays. Dengue Boy is his first novel.

Reviews for Dengue Boy: 'Smart, funny and brutal' Mariana Enríquez

Michel Nieva goes all out with this steampunk book which imagines the end of Latin America amidst gaucho literature, savage video games and monetised plagues. Smart, funny and brutal -- Mariana Enríquez, author of Our Share of Night An incandescent imagination, illuminating the strangeness of all that surrounds us with a precise balance of tension and tenderness -- Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive The book of a genius -- Enrique Vila-Matas, author of Montano's Malady