Michelle Roche Rodríguez and Her Novel Malasangre
Michelle Roche Rodríguez is a Venezuelan writer who has spent several years in Spain. She blends storytelling with essays, journalism, and literary criticism. She holds a PhD in Gender Studies from the Autonomous University of Madrid and a Master of Arts in Philosophy and Literature from New York University.
Malasangre, published by Anagrama in 2020, captures a pivotal historical moment in the 1920s, a time when the Gómez dictatorship was nearing its end. The novel uses the roaring twenties as a backdrop to introduce the character Diana Gutiérrez as a vampire and to reveal the early stages of the oil economy in Venezuela, alongside the emerging rents controlled by ancestral oil families. The author describes the era as earthly, parasitic, and vampiric.
The central figure in the tale suffers from hematophagy, a trait poorly transmitted by a distant father who is portrayed as a marginal presence. Diana, however, is compelled to conform to the expectations of a restrictive era that demanded women become virtuous and serve as dowry in arranged marriages that functioned as financial transactions. If a woman’s honor is questioned, paternity could also be challenged.
The vampire archetype serves as an inspirational model for Malasangre. The author has long been drawn to Gothic fiction and used Diana as a framework inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Valentine Penrose’s The Bloody Countess. Theda Bara’s portrayal in the silent film There Was a Fool is also consulted to shape the protagonist, particularly in a moment when the character contemplates the possibility of becoming a monster to gain freedom. Roche Rodríguez emphasizes that her characters strive to overcome victimhood and resist oppression.
Adorno’s critique about the glorification of female characters echoes in the work. The novel and an accompanying essay titled My Mother, You Are in Legend explore how virgin motherhood can become a social device that excludes women by promoting perceived virtues such as common sense, dignity, and sacrifice. The author notes that Malasangre was written with these convictions in mind, as Diana fights to escape the private sphere controlled by family and to seize control of her own life.
In recent years a number of Latin American writers have emerged with strong narrative power. Notable names include Mariana Enríquez, Guadalupe Nettel, Mónica Ojeda, and the author of Malasangre. The work reflects a broader movement where Spanish American writers have sought greater recognition and challenged assumptions about women’s literature. The author observes that censorship has eased and that works by female authors are no longer dismissed as inferior simply because of gender. A historical pattern shows many writers from earlier centuries who faced heavy family burdens that limited their output.
Looking ahead, the Venezuelan author is developing a collection of short stories and a new novel. These forthcoming works will explore how ghosts inhabit spaces of loneliness and will probe questions of morality and free will beyond simplistic binaries of good and evil. The creative project continues to examine how personal agency can challenge entrenched social norms.
Sources for this overview come from scholarly interviews and literary analyses that discuss the connections between gender, power, and cultural history in Venezuelan literature. Attribution for these insights should be noted to primary interviews and critical essays in literary journals and author-focused discussions.