ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses how fact and fiction indeed meet and clash in a literary text by Daniel Gallegos, as well as in journalistic works that portray this absurd scenario. It explores how the classical notion of home as labyrinth is molded into a space that transmits fears and anxieties that are specific to Costa Rican society, a society which is undergoing a critical and, at times, violent transition. Like the heavily-guarded homes of real life, Gallegos's play En el septimo circulo addresses the phenomenon of how extreme fears concerning personal safety and lack of trust in others engender dwellings that, beyond protecting, entrap their occupants. The smart home in Gallegos's fiction is present in real life not so much in the form of technologically advanced houses, but in heavily fortified structures. It seems that fear has turned the Costa Rican domestic lifestyle, in and out of books, into a pathetic existence of permanent house arrest, into "casa por carcel".
