Nieva, Michel
Entry updated 14 July 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1988- ) Argentine poet, translator and author, active from before 2010. In his first novel, ¿Sueñan los gauchoides con ñandúes eléctricos? ["Do Gauchoids Dream of Electric Rheas?"] (2013), he created what, with some self-mockery, he called Gauchopunk (see Cyberpunk): a mode through which a gonzo assault on historical and Near-Future psychic and physical Invasions of Latin America could be mounted. Ascenso y apogeo del imperio argentino ["Rise and Apogee of the Argentine Empire"] (2018) continues this exercise. There are hints that a Future History lies behind these tales which may be seen to climax in a world no longer burdened with human beings.
La Infancia del Mundo (2023; trans Rahul Bery as Dengue Boy 2025), which is set in a twenty-third century Argentina profoundly afflicted by Climate Change, with much of the land flooded and land life is restricted to Archipelagos, adheres to Nieva's overall scenario. The protagonist, a giant mosquito mysteriously born to a human mother (see Absurdist SF; Equipoise), must make his way in a world dominated by international corporations managing and profiting from a sequence of Pandemics; he is assisted in his torn life by Telepathic advice from an ancient stone icon which speaks to him via a Videogame. Through a deliberately grotesque play on Gender issues, in the course of which Dengue Boy finds that mosquito-like he is actually Dengue Girl, who is capable of killing, and who takes revenge on Disaster tourists, CEOs of exploitive companies: indeed the whole of the corporatized world to come. The world's richest man, who wants to conquer the galaxy, is dealt with summarily. As a Satire, Dengue Boy may seem exaggerated beyond the point of purchase: but Nieva's staged targets are, all the same, convincingly punctured. [JC]
Michael Nieva
born Buenos Aires, Argentina: 7 March 1988
works (selected)
- ¿Sueñan los gauchoides con ñandúes eléctricos? ["Do Gauchoids Dream of Electric Rheas?"] (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Colmena, 2013) [binding unknown/]
- Ascenso y apogeo del imperio argentino ["Rise and Apogee of the Argentine Empire"] (Buenos Aires, Argentina: Santiago Arcos, 2018) [binding unknown/]
- La Infancia del Mundo (Barcelona, Spain: Anagrama, 2023) [binding unknown/]
- Dengue Boy (Astra House, 2025) [trans by Rahul Bery of the above: short version, trans by Natasha Wimmer, first published Spring 2021 Granta: hb/Sophy Hollington]
nonfiction
- Tecnologia y barbarie: Ocho ensayos sobre monos, virus, bacterias, escritura no humana y cienciaficción ["Technology and Barbarism: Eight Essays on Monkeys, Viruses, Bacteria, Non-human Writing and Science Fiction"] (Barcelona, Spain: Anagrama, 2020) [nonfiction: binding unknown/]
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