Mónica Ojeda Franco (born

Guayaquil , motto = Por Guayaquil Independiente en, For Independent Guayaquil , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Ecuador#South America , pushpin_re ...

, 1988) is an

Ecuadorian Ecuadorians ( es, ecuatorianos) are people identified with the South American country of Ecuador. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Ecuadorians, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collect ...

writer. She obtained her bachelor's degree from the

Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil, UCSG, is a private, catholic, higher education center, along with Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador in Ecuador. History UCSG was created on May 17, 1962, at the request of the board of C ...

, followed by a master's degree from the Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona. She is currently working on her doctorate in Madrid. Ojeda has published in several genres, including poetry, novels, and short stories. In 2017, she was named as one of the Bogota39, a selection of the best young writers in Latin America. The other 38 included

Samanta Schweblin Samanta Schweblin (born 1978) is an Argentine Spanish-language author currently living in Berlin. She has published three collections of short stories, a novella and a novel, besides stories that have appeared in anthologies and magazines such as ...

, the Brazilians Mariana Torres and Gabriela Jauregui, Liliana Colanzi from Bolivia and Argentinians María José Caro and Lola Copacabana. In January 2018 she published the novel ''Jawbone'', which tells the story of a teenage girl obsessed with horror stories and

creepypasta Creepypastas are horror-related legends that have been shared around the Internet. Creepypasta has since become a catch-all term for any horror content posted onto the Internet. These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal ...

s who is kidnapped by her literature teacher. The book was described as "one of the novels of the season" by the Spanish newspaper

El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

, which ranked it 12th in its list of the 50 best books of 2018. The novel was also selected as one of the ten finalists for the Mario Vargas Llosa Biennial Novel Prize in its 2018 edition. In 2020 she was selected as one of the five finalists for the sixth edition of the Ribera del Duero Short Story Award with her unpublished book of short stories El mundo de arriba y el mundo de abajo, in which she explores through horror themes such as gender violence, abortion, sexuality and religion in a style she defined as "Andean Gothic".

Works

Novels

* ''La desfiguración Silva'' (2015) * ''Nefando'' (2016). Translated in 2023 as ''Nefando'' by Sarah Booker. * ''Mandíbula'' (2018). Translated in 2022 as ''Jawbone'' by Sarah Booker.

Poetry

* ''El ciclo de las piedras'' (2015) * ''Historia de la leche'' (2019)

Short stories

* ''Caninos'' (2017), individual story * ''Las voladoras'' (2020)

References

21st-century Ecuadorian women writers Living people 1988 births Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil alumni Pompeu Fabra University alumni Ecuadorian women novelists Ecuadorian women poets 21st-century Ecuadorian poets Ecuadorian novelists 21st-century novelists Ecuadorian short story writers Ecuadorian women short story writers 21st-century short story writers People from Guayaquil {{Ecuador-writer-stub