Grieving Dispatches from a Wounded Country

Cristina Rivera Garza, Sarah Booker

eBook - 2020

Finalist for the 2020 National Book Critics' Circle Award for Criticism By one of Mexico's greatest contemporary writers, this investigation into state violence and mourning gives voice to the political experience of collective pain. Grieving is a hybrid collection of short crónicas, journalism, and personal essays on systemic violence in contemporary Mexico and along the US-Mexico border. Drawing together literary theory and historical analysis, she outlines how neoliberalism, corruption, and drug trafficking—culminating in the misnamed "war on drugs"—has shaped her country. Working from and against this political context, Cristina Rivera Garza posits that collective grief is an act of resistance against state viol...ence, and that writing is a powerful mode of seeking social justice and embodying resilience. She states: "As we write, as we work with language—the humblest and most... more