MICHELLE ROCHE RODRÍGUEZ
Published Work
BOOKS
Malasangre
(Barcelona: Anagrama, 2020)
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A historical Gothic novel set in 1920s Venezuela, where the fantastic and the political converge. During the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, the only daughter of a family of social climbers discovers that she possesses a power bound to blood.
Malasangre combines the fantastic with historical allegory to explore violence, power, and control over the female body in a society that proclaims itself modern yet remains subject to military authoritarianism.
Gente decente
(Digital: Musa a las 9, 2017)
Winner of the Francisco Ayala Narrative Prize, Gente decente is a short-story collection that explores the fragility of family relationships, everyday violence, and the erosion of institutions. The stories show how the crisis of public life permeates private and domestic life in contemporary Venezuela.
Madre mía que estás en el mito
(Sílex, 2016)
The essay examines the central role of the Virgin Mary in the construction of femininity in the West. It explores how the Marian archetype displaced the autonomy attributed to ancient nature goddesses and established a model of motherhood based on purity, chastity, and self-denial.
Madre mía que estás en el mito dismantles this ideal of femininity and shows how the myth of Mary helped legitimize male authority and the exclusion of women from social and political life.
Álbum de familia: conversaciones sobre la identidad y cultura en Venezuela
(Editorial Alfa, 2013)
The collection of interviews brings together Venezuelan intellectuals, writers, and artists to consider the country’s cultural identity in the context of Chavismo. Structured as a mosaic of conversations, Álbum de familia captures the cultural debates of a Venezuela marked by profound social and political tensions.
Blending cultural journalism and essayistic reflection, the volume explores competing ideas about Venezuelan culture and identity during a period of political and social polarization and transformation.
SELECTED ANTHOLOGIES
1 / Las guerras floridas. Antología breve del cuento hispanoamericano actual
Edited by Pedro Pablo Guerrero. Páramo and Lastarria & De Mora, 2025
Includes the short story “El pronóstico de la doctora.”
2 / Salvar la frontera. Muestra de cuentos de autores venezolanos migrantes
Edited by Carlos Sandoval and Gustavo Valle. Equidistancias, 2025
Includes the short story “Madre de leche.”
3 / ¡Basta ya! Escritoras y escritores contra la violencia de género
JDB Books, 2025. Incluye un fragmento del relato «Lata de galletas».