Hi, I'm Lavar Burton and this is Lavar Burton Reads.

Where in every episode I hand pick a different piece of short fiction and I read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will too.

Now today's story, y'all, is a fascinating mix of horror and magical realism from the author Anna

Hurtado. Anna was born in Venezuela and she was raised in Ecuador. She earned her MFA and creative

writing and environment from Iowa State University. She's currently working on a novel about a teenage

immigrant in Ecuador and her first love, a ghost who's been roaming Keto for centuries.

Madre Nuestra Queastas in Maracaibo is about a woman named Ysenea who's having some difficulties

in her life. Her marriage is on the rocks. She's been educated as a lawyer but hates the law.

She moves back home to Maracaibo in Venezuela to help take care of her family, including her

grandmother Juana, who has dementia and is growing more debilitated and closer to death by the day.

However, there's kind of an interesting backstory to her grandmother back when she had her

full mental faculties. She prayed, well, religiously, to the souls stuck in purgatory and her

interactions with those souls come back to Haunter. Now, this short story was first published in the

July, August 2020 issue of the magazine of fantasy and science fiction and Anna spoke to them about

the story's origins. She was inspired to write this story by her aunt who told her about Anna's

great grandmother named Juana, who had a very similar ritual to the grandma Juana in the story.

Anna was also inspired by the colonial history of Latin America and by Caribbean tales of magic.

This story has a few phrases in Spanish for which Anna kindly and graciously provided me the

translations. I love the environment of this story and the hero's journey within and I hope

you enjoy it as well. Please check out the written description of the episode for a content advisory

if you are so inclined and if you're ready, let's take a deep breath

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