Mónica Ojeda

Mónica Ojeda Franco (born Guayaquil, 1988) is an Ecuadorian writer. She obtained her bachelor's degree from the Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil, followed by a master's degree from the Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona. She is currently working on her doctorate in Madrid. Ojeda has published in several genres, including poetry, novels, and short stories. In 2017, she was named as one of the Bogota39, a selection of the best young writers in Latin America.[1]

Mónica Ojeda in 2018

In January 2018 she published the novel Mandíbula, which tells the story of a teenage girl obsessed with horror stories and creepypastas who is kidnapped by her literature teacher.[2] The book was acclaimed by critics at the time of its publication and described as "one of the novels of the season" by the Spanish newspaper El País,[3] which ranked it 12th in its list of the 50 best books of 2018.[4] The novel was also selected as one of the ten finalists for the Mario Vargas Llosa Biennial Novel Prize in its 2018 edition.[5]

In 2020 she was selected as one of the five finalists for the sixth edition of the Ribera del Duero Short Story Award with her unpublished book of short stories El mundo de arriba y el mundo de abajo,[6] in which she explores through horror themes such as gender violence, abortion, sexuality and religion in a style she defined as "Andean Gothic".[7]