Dead Girls - Selva Almada

Femicide is defined as the murder of women simply because they are women. Following the success ofThe Wind That Lays Waste, internationally acclaimed Argentinian authorSelva Almadadives into the heart of this crime with a unique journalistic novel, comparable to Truman Capote'sIn Cold Bloodor John Hersey'sHiroshima.
Almada narrates the case of three small-town teenage girls murdered in the 1980's; three unpunished deaths that occurred even before the word 'femicide' was even coined. In this brutal but necessary novel, Almada brings to the fore these crimes committed at a time when Argentina was celebrating the return of democracy. Three deaths without culprits: Selva Almada takes these tales to weave together a portrait of gender violence that surpasses national borders and speaks to readers worldwide.
This is not a police chronicle, although there is an investigation. This is not a thriller, although there is mystery and suspense. The realnoirelement ofDead Girlslies in the heart of the women described here and of the men that have abused them. With her unique style of prose that captures the invisible, and with lyrical brutality, Almada manages to blaze new trails in journalistic fiction.

Compared to Carson McCullers, William Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor,
Selva Almada is considered one of the most powerful voices of contemporary Argentinian and Latin American literature and one of the most influential feminist intellectuals of the region.