La condesa sangrienta

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Alejandra Pizarnik’s death, a cloth-bound hardcover edition of *La condesa sangrienta* (The Bloody Countess) has been released; it is a key work by a poet considered one of the most influential voices of the 20th century. Across twelve brief, highly lyrical texts that blend essay and narrative, the author’s unique universe unfolds, ultimately constructing a disturbing portrait of sadism and madness. This volume—which also features an afterword by poet and essayist María Negroni, a renowned expert on Pizarnik’s work—recounts the crimes of Erzsébet Báthory, one of history’s most sinister killers, who was accused of the deaths of six hundred and fifty young women. In her Carpathian castle during the late 17th century, the countess tortured her victims to drain them of blood in a bid to preserve her own youth. Her dark, fascinating legend endures to this day. The artwork by Santiago Caruso—a signature artist for the Libros del Zorro Rojo catalog—draws inspiration from medieval illustrators, Romanticism, and 19th-century Symbolist aesthetics to create a symbolic representation of terror. His scratchboard illustrations, which play with a web of contrasts between red and black, amplify the poet’s text, demonstrating how an existing work is transformed into something new through the artistic intervention of a talented illustrator.