Have been reading If I Die in Juarez by Stella Pope Duarte, a really important and incredibly beautifully written book about the murders, mutilations, dismemberments and disappearances of the young women of Juarez, the Mexican city immediately across the border from El Paso, Texas. The book is meticulously researched (took her 3 years to do the research) and exposed her to a certain amount of personal danger. For years, the police and the factory owners "looked the other way" and basically blamed the women for their rapes and torture. But at least of the drug cartels is heavily involved, and they have put a contract out on the woman investigative reporter from El Paso who has written the most about the book (and who is in some ways a character in Stella's book).
It is, in many ways, a harrowing book--because it deals with a dreadful situation. Stella said yesterday at a book group discussion at our library that there are over 5000 "disappeared" young women from Juarez. Most of those who have vanished are between 15 and 25, and a few even younger. Some bodies (or parts of bodies) have been found, but others have just vanished. It's a novel that makes you understand the horror and desparrate hopes of the women of Juarez who have begun to fight back with some success. It also makes clear the real evil that seems to dominate this city where the US has dozens of maquiladora factories, as do other countries. Stella says international attention has already begun to help some, but more is needed. It's strange that we have heard so much about the atrocities in Africa, for example--but the brutal rape, mutilation and murder of 5000 women right across the river from the US has gotten almost no national attention in the US--let alone international attention. Somehow, this has a relation to one of the messages of Monstrous Regiment.
All three of Stella's books, this one and Let Their Spirits Dance and the collection of short stories Fragile Night are now available on Amazon UK. So, I urge some of you to try reading her work. Let Their Spirits Dance is about the continuing effect on families and survivors of Vietnam--and unfortunately is still horribly relevant today. And while it is set in the US--it speaks to all those who have troops fighting in foreign wars.