What the Forest Devours
A Novel
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Pub Date Oct 20 2026 | Archive Date Dec 15 2026
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Description
“Elaine Vilar Madruga is a powerful, elegant, and daring voice. I want to read everything she writes." — MARIANA ENRIQUEZ
In this award-winning horror novel from Latin America, a community of women and children—and one man—fight for survival in a harsh and terrifying Cuban rainforest where the gods require appeasement through brutal sacrifice.
The forest is a terrifying, hungry god with harsh rules and a ravenous appetite that must be fed. In this ruthless world mothers raise their children as food, a cannibalistic system of offerings and retribution from which there is no escape. For women, survival depends on becoming mothers. They must reproduce even as their children grow up trapped between life and death, heaven and hell. Such is life on the hacienda.
To ensure the forest’s protection, its inhabitants must renounce their rights and any trace of hope. Among them is Benedicta, a cruel and prolific “whelp” producer, now past her prime. The timid Lazaro, the community's only man, fears the forest, Benedicta, and the memory of his mother. Benedicta's daughter, Ifigenia, lives on borrowed time as she anticipates the forest's call. She loathes everyone, including the feral “she-dog” Ananda, whose fury has given way to madness. And then there’s Romina, a hardened newcomer to the forest who may just break the cycle.
A Caribbean-flavored novel of gothic horror from one of Latin America's most exciting young writers, What the Forest Devours is a macabre examination of what women must sacrifice to survive in a society with the power to destroy them at any turn. With its spine-tingling allegories, impressive imaginative vision, and a dazzling translation courtesy of acclaimed translator Kevin Gerry Dunn, English language readers can experience the dazzling masterpiece that has swallowed the Spanish literary world whole.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780063425514 |
| PRICE | $18.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 304 |
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Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.orgAverage rating from 28 members
Featured Reviews
Katelyn Q, Reviewer
There was NO. HOLDING. BACK. This was no filter, let you fester and feel uncomfortable in all its rawness, gothic fiction. I read the English translation and felt no loss of brutality and violence that is this story. The story takes place in a forest in Cuba where women are sacrificing their children for survival and bounces perspectives between multiple characters - all of them are equally powerful and haunting (the children and Benedicta were my personal favorites). I mean - cannibalism - need I say more for a gothic horror fan? As a mother - this was TERRIFYING to read. My stomach was clenched the entire time and the way it explores motherhood in this community was deeply unsettling but so well done. I also appreciated the dynamic of the community and how it represented societal control. You must read. You must.
Valeria R, Librarian
My god what did i just read. This was visceral and obscene but it was impossible to look away. The writing was also captivating the way it was so crude and cruel it made everything feel raw.
It is about a very little society in a forest of Cuba who feeds children to keep their monster in check.
I think this is an excellent representation of how much motherhood changes your life and what you sacrifice for it brought to the extreme.
Benedicta was such a complex character, she was a monster but how she came to that was fascinating.
I also absolutely loved Romina. I am obsessed with how she is the only one who felt at home within the heart of the forest because of her story, the contrast was amazing and very fitting it touched me a lot.
Overall this is a cruel book not backing away from animal cruelty in details and also drug laced milk on baby so I don’t know who I could recommend this to but this was an experience to read it.
Librarian 2099507
Such a heartbreaking book. I couldn't stop reading. The way childbirth and being a woman are described in such a horrific and vivid way. I felt my heart breaking for every character and their circumstances. I thought it was a wonderful book, a very hard read, but a great piece of feminist horror.
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