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A review by aj_x416
Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement
4.0
Mash-ups rarely do justice, but let me give this a try just for fun: One Hundred Years of Solitude meets American Dirt?
OK, not quite. But there is something about Clement's creation of young Ladydi Garcia Martinez, and her remote mountain village home in Guerrero State, just an hour from Acapulco, that made me think of the rich tropical tales in Solitude. Ladydi's story - one of rural poverty and the injustice and suffering meted against women by men - told with very dark humour that can come across as both fabulist and also intrinsically woven with the jungle landscape, describes horrifying events that occur in contemporary Mexico. And narcotraffickers committing horrific crimes of violence that transform the social fabric, along with the fast-paced narrative, do evoke American Dirt.
Clement writes poetically but with a clear-eyed view of everyday terror and despair. This is a compelling read.
OK, not quite. But there is something about Clement's creation of young Ladydi Garcia Martinez, and her remote mountain village home in Guerrero State, just an hour from Acapulco, that made me think of the rich tropical tales in Solitude. Ladydi's story - one of rural poverty and the injustice and suffering meted against women by men - told with very dark humour that can come across as both fabulist and also intrinsically woven with the jungle landscape, describes horrifying events that occur in contemporary Mexico. And narcotraffickers committing horrific crimes of violence that transform the social fabric, along with the fast-paced narrative, do evoke American Dirt.
Clement writes poetically but with a clear-eyed view of everyday terror and despair. This is a compelling read.