Observed in Mexico and parts of the United States, El Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a celebratory holiday. Los Muertos is the first anthology of fiction relating to or inspired by this bicultural tradition. Each of the two dozen Mexican and Mexican American writers featured here has a unique affinity for the myriad ideas connected closely to the El Día de Muertos—some in less obvious ways. The stories connect to the metaphors and connotations related to memorializing the dead, some reflecting on the ritualized and religious aspects of what has become a commercialized holiday and others reacting to such cultural appropriations.

In celebration and reconciliation, stories like Alessandra Narváez Varela’s, told from the point of view of a Día de los Muertos wreath, and Marytza Rubio’s, about a young woman trying to rewrite a young man’s death through parallel dimensions, illustrate the ways Latino cultures process death. From Kirstin Valdez Quade’s little girl struggling to accept her mother’s abandonment to David Rice’s character forgiving himself in remembrance of his daughter’s namesake, each character fully embraces what it means to look death in the face and celebrate the losses of the departed. From solemn ofrendas and milagros to everyday acts far removed from any trace of pan de muerto or papel picado, these diverse stories call us to appreciate the holiday’s broader cultural significance.

Writers include Ana Gloria Álvarez Pedrajo, Rosa Beltrán, Ana García Bergua, Ana Castillo, Lucha Corpi, Elizabeth Gonzalez James, Diana López, Lorraine M. López, Alberto Reyes Morgan, Manuel Muñoz, Alessandra Narváez-Varela, Guadalupe Nettel, Daniel A. Olivas, Pedro Ángel Palou, Rene S Perez II, Kirstin Valdez Quade, David Rice, Alberto Ríos, Ito Romo, Marytza K. Rubio, Socorro Venegas, and Désirée Zamorano.

Adela Pineda Franco is the Lozano Long Endowed Professor in Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies and director of the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She founded and directed the Center for Latin American Studies at Boston University, where she taught for twenty years. She is the author and coeditor of numerous books. She lives in Austin.