Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country

by Cristina Rivera Garza, Sarah Booker (Translator)

Grieving is Cristina Rivera Garza’s hybrid collection of short crónicas, journalism, and personal essays on systemic violence in contemporary Mexico and along the US-Mexico border. Drawing together horror theory and historical analysis, she outlines how neoliberalism, corruption, and drug trafficking—culminating in the misnamed “war on drugs”—has shaped the political landscape on both sides of the border. Working from and against this context, Rivera Garza posits that collective grief is an act of resistance against state violence, 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 powerful force available to us—we activate the potential of words, phrases, sentences. Writing as we grieve, grieving as we write: a practice able to create refuge from the open. Writing with others. Grieving like someone who takes refuge from the open. Grieving, which is always a radically different mode of writing.”

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Grief, History, Poetry, Politics, Feminism

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Cristina Rivera Garza is the author of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction. Originally written in Spanish, these works have been translated into English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, and more. Born in Mexico in 1964, she has lived in the United States since 1989. She is Distinguished Professor in Hispanic Studies and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Houston and was awarded the MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2020.

Reviews

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered the voice of Cristina Rivera Garza two years ago she was interviewed by Jonathan Lethem at the Center for Fiction in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn.

Her sensitivity, love of language, words, and writing dangerously to arouse calls to action were unforgettable, and truly inspiring, "how many languages are hidden and how many allow their echoes to be glimpsed in the words we pronounce?" (Garza 141).

"Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country" is a collection of musings, notes, essays, poems, and articles concerning the act of grieving in a world going mad.

Ms. Garza is critical of Ciudad Juarez, where corruption and the slaughter of innocent women continue to happen, as well as sex trafficking and the bloodshed of the innocent brings her sorrow. Ms. Garza writes an essay called "Tragic Agency" which "the difficulty of writing about pain comes from our interpretations that regularly yield to the way things are or that reproduce pain in all its rawness or impotency or verticality" (Garza 38).

Ms. Garza also writes about the grief many Latinix communities felt after the election of President Trump; the grief of solitude that happened after Covid 19 happened, cutting us off from our loved ones, and having to maintain human relationships via Zoom, and other social media platforms.

For Ms. Garza, the act of writing dangerously- as James Baldwin and Edwidge Danticat have declared at some point in their illustrious careers, is a "frenzied collective energy is what made it possible to keep living to achieve this future" (Garza 154).

On a hopeful note, "writing will be reevaluated, under the protection of all eyes, all bodies, because it affects all of us" (Garza 154).

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fact that it took me nearly four months to make my way through this book is not a comment on its quality. This collection of essays is, by turns, poetic, tragic, brutal, angry, and hopeful. It is always an engaging read, rarely comfortable, frequently horrifying. It is at times a catalogue of pain, of lives lost, communities shattered under the terror of the misnamed drug war that has been waged not against drugs, but against the people of Mexico in the 21st century. It is also a tribute to the power of words as a weapon that cannot and must not be silenced. As whole it may be best read a couple of essays at a time, with space to allow the images and ideas to sink in.

A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2021/12/15/we...

[S P · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ask Julio Aguilar how he does it. How do you survive in this city taking photos of ten to fourteen bodies a day? I remember his laughter. Julio, indeed, laughs. I write with the light, he says. As the day goes by I become warped, but sometimes, when something about the landscape is able to move me—a cloud, a plant, the rain—I see that I am still human. Then I am sure that I will survive. I am going to die doing this, you know? It isn't for the money. It's because I write with the light. That's how.

—The Longest Sunday, p119

[Lupita Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

GRIEVING Dispatches from a Wounded Country by Cristina River Garza is an insight into what US mainstream media often exploits without targeting the actual issues surrounding the systemic violence in Mexico. How it’s influenced and manipulated and the ways in which the citizens of Mexico grieve to move through it.

Garza includes in this collection first-hand accounts of Mexican citizens that have lost family members as well as so much more while also weaving in her grief of losing her sister to domestic violence. It’s one of the most informative books I have read that balances reality with human emotions. Anyone truly interested in learning more about Mexico should pre-order this book out on October 6th. I am grateful for writers like Garza that make it possible for me to learn more about my country of origin & it’s citizens in this way.

[Sarah Jaffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. So painfully good.

[Isa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edit: Happy 50th 2024 book to me!

"Grief, the. perhaps like desire, 'contains the possibility of apprehending a mode of dispossession that is fundamental to who I am.' It follows that by losing the Other, 'I not only mourn the loss, but I become inscrutable to myself.' The virtue of mourning consists of positioning the I neither as an affirmation nor as a possibility but as a way of unknowing. A becoming."

The way that Rivera Garza writes about the loss and grief on a social scale is both intimate and a large indictment of Empire and the systems that have failed the marginalized and underserved. Her words capture deep sorrow and anger toward the various systems that continue to wrought violence on the poor. In the midst of such horror, it is our responsibility to bear witness and to avoid being desensitized to such violence. I'm already such a fan of her writing but I think this may be my favorite of her works.

[Britta Böhler · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

[Karolina]

Świetne.

[Kamila Kunda · Rating 5 out of 5]

First thing, besides colours, that struck me in Oaxaca was the huge number of graffiti, woodblock print posters and signs on buildings on femicide, disappearings of women and injustice towards indigenous women. Cristina Rivera Garza in her absolutely brilliant collection of essays on the topic “Grieving. Dispatches from a Wounded Country” enlightens her readers: “According to official SESNSP statistics from 2019, ten women are killed and 4,320 are raped in Mexico on a daily basis”. These are the official statistics. How many cases are not reported? No one knows for sure.

Mexican women are enraged. They protest, they petition, they organise campaigns (long before #MeToo there were Mexican campaigns #RopaSucia - #DirtyLaundry - and #MiPrimerAcosto - #MyFirstAssault, later also #NiUnaMás - #NotOneMore). Rivera Garza offers a valuable insight into the workings of these movements in Mexico, talks about specific cases, gives personal accounts of people affected. Her essays masterfully combine newspaper style reporting with poetry, lyrical reflections and memoir (the author’s younger sister, aged 20, was killed by her ex-boyfriend in 1990). She expresses her rage at authorities’ complicity in disappearings, kidnappings and murders, at corruption, failed attempts to lower the crime rate. Her concern about what living in fear does to a society is palpable: “Malleable, fear alerts the body to danger, indeed, but if felt for a long time, it also numbs, paralyses. A society that is afraid is a society that looks down. Those who are afraid fail to act. Imprisoned by fear, the frightened hear noises that, at night, infuriatingly stretch until dawn, and, by day, fall in step with them. Those who are afraid waste most of their energy bracing themselves for blows that are not, for them, imaginary. (…) Fear isolates. Fear teaches us to mistrust. Fear drives us crazy.” The victims are mainly women, also of the Mexican war on drugs, initiated by the then president Felipe Calderón in 2006. In “She Used to Smile Before the War”, Marco Antonio López Romero wrote: “The state robbed us of even the spaces to think about the future”. No wonder many women leave, even if only to have a space to think of the future.

Rivera Garza’s multifaceted exploration of rage, fear, shock and grief is simply superb. There is hope in the way she weaves the essays, there is relentless passion and dedication to improving the situation of women and men in Mexico, to fighting inequality, injustice, racism and misogyny, to holding those in charge accountable. Towards the end there is an appeal to women to not give up: “That world, this possible future, requires all of our intelligence, knowledge, tenderness, disagreement, and wonder. That world requires all this of you and me. Now. Here. Because not one more death - ni una más - and not one less life - ni una menos - is to be spared”. Instead of feeling depleted and resigned, I finished the book inspired, hopeful, somewhat stronger.

[Frida H]

Yo quiero mucho a Cristina Rivera Garza. Estos textos los sentí muy cercanos a mi realidad. De hecho, me revolotearon tanto por la cabeza que hablé con mi mejor amiga sobre la normalización de la violencia. Dialogamos sobre nuestra secundaria 2008 - 2011 y cómo esa etapa estuvo atascada de horror y miedo y dolor. Cristina siempre me ayuda a pensar en cosas que han estado a mi lado y he optado por ignorar, hasta que llega ella y sus letras me envuelven: no hay forma de escapar con tremenda narrativa que se carga 💖. Admito que lloré en varios textos. Uno de mis favoritos es "El domingo más largo", uffff, gran apartado. Una crónica honesta que muestra el tormento de una madre a la que el narcotrafico le quitó a sus dos hijos y la búsqueda de justicia. El dolor de quienes se quedan y la capacidad de seguir luchando a pesar de tanto daño irreparable.
En fin, está chido como cuenta el dolor y su postura ante un país herido. Yo estoy de acuerdo con ella, es bueno cuando no nos paralizados ante el dolor y preferimos enfrentarlo y crear desde ese lugar tan oscuro.

"Cuando todo enmudece, cuando la gravedad de los hechos rebasa con mucho nuestro entendimiento e incluso nuestra imaginación, entonces está ahí, dispuesto, abierto, tartamudo, herido, balbuceante, el lenguaje del dolor"

"La justicia es a veces la forma del abrazo"

[Justine Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country by Cristina Rivera Garza is a collection of essays, crónicas, and poetry on the systematic violence in 21st century Mexico. Rivera Garza weaves together the political, the historical, and the personal. The pages are full of pain, anger, fear, the lives lost. But there is resilience and hope in her words, in the understanding that people must unite and fight the terrors of Mexico, the US, the world as a collective we. To questions of whether a writer can still write in the face of horror, a question that has been asked by many writers and thinkers before including Theodor Adorno and Paul Celan, her answer is that the words and poetry must continue to flow: ‘Because writing, by nature, invites us to consider the possibility that the world can, in fact, be different.’
(tr. Sarah Booker)

[Angela Pineda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written series of short stories about systemic violence (mainly against women) in Mexico (with some antidotes about the US).

This came on my radar as I needed to read a translated book for a non fiction challenge. It was difficult to listen to - especially as people all over the world continue to be killed by gun violence, terrorism, natural disasters, etc.

[Nakarem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to reread this book.
It’s devastating but in the most enlightening way possible.
There is barely anything I knew about a lot of the issues they talk about in this book, eg. NARCO, but I am glad to have learned about it.

[Rachel Louise Atkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this essay collection, Garza opens with a really powerful statement on what it means to grieve and the relationship between grieving and writing. She discusses how grieving is an active thing which never stops happening but that through writing we constantly live through and learn to live with, and writing is one of the ways of moving through this grief.

Garza lost her sister to a horrific femicide and this collection discusses the tragic epidemic of women losing their lives to murder in Mexico. It moves through the topic with a variety of lenses, using different case studies and giving a brief summary of the Mexican political system and background.

I found some of the essays quite tough to get through and I think it was to do with Garza’s writing. As a lot of the essays are really short a lot of the information is crammed in and given to you quite intensely and so it’s a read you need to concentrate on at all times which is what took me a while to get used to and why I wouldn’t really say I enjoyed the essays, but found them absolutely invaluable nevertheless. I did however really enjoy the poems which bookended the collection and the last essay that discussed the pandemic was absolutely incredible. The bits about how the city is designed to be moved through in a vehicle and how hard it is to walk around a city but the pandemic brought back a sense of the wanderer to urban life is so fascinating.

Having a good time discovering Garza and will be reading another non-fiction and fiction book from her very soon.

[Nishta Mehra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning and mind-expanding.

[Jimena Cuevas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sigo procesándolo

[Ariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estremecedor. Qué importante es mirar al dolor de frente y no hacerle el quite.

[Harris]

Garza works primarily to affirm life instead of expounding on a theory of death, femicide, neoliberalism, and the war on drugs as is done in much of the contemporary literature about Mexico. It’s a delicate balance which Garza handles with seeming ease. She quotes the more recent work of Judith Butler on precarity and grief to establish a unity, a wholeness, through collective grief: “You are what I gain through this disorientation and loss. This is how the human comes into being, again and again, as that which we have yet to know.”

Through grief, through collective mourning, there is an implication of oneself into another’s life. This insistence of life, in the face of the femicide machine, also brings to mind the work Katherine McKittrick who is likewise intent on affirming Black life in the contemporary world and within the historical archives.

Throughout the 120 or so pages, Garza references many Spanish-language authors, primarily Mexican. It’s a gold mine for those searching for more Mexican authors to read. Many of them are, unsurprisingly, still not translated into English. However, there are some big names like Juan Rulfo and Jose Revueltas that have been translated to some extent. She references a short story by Juan Rulfo called “Luvina,” one I have not read, where a man, overwhelmed by the strangeness of the town he is in, asks his wife “what country are we in, Agripina?” She echoes this refrain throughout the rest of the book to emphasize the strangeness she feels towards the ever-changing state of Mexico.

[Kokelector · Rating 5 out of 5]

Las heridas, fracturas y la violencia que aquí se relata, en un espacio geográfico confinado a Mexico, es una cicatriz que atraviesa y se expande a toda América Latina. Cristina Rivera Garza, doctora en historia Latinoamérica, recorre la triste historia de violencia que azota Mexico desde el narcotráfico y como un estado se va haciendo cada vez más ausente, a través de notas periodísticas y ensayos, reflexiones personales y anotaciones que se van uniendo en un relato, con algunos poemas que reflejan la versatilidad de una increíble escritora. Repasa los femicidios, la violencia que no da tregua pero siempre con la mirada puesta en la esperanza de la defensa irrestricta de los DD.HH. de toda índole. Es un libro que duele, que habla del dolor, del duelo, pero que como la misma autora lo dice: es la única forma de darnos conciencia de que somos seres humanos, porque nos preocupa un otro y otra. Una lectura necesaria para saber que sigue existiendo la violencia como forma de ejercicio de la política. La pluma de esta autora te llevará a replantearte como te enfrentas al dolor, la violencia y la incertidumbre de un mundo que cambia a cada instante. Gran trabajo de editorial Libros del Cardo.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of creative non-fiction primarily about the violence in contemporary Mexico wrought by machoism and capitalism. Both mediative and passionate, and personally revealing of how little I knew about Mexico besides how the country is portrayed in American media. Slim and though lacking the depth to explore these topics past their emotional impact, Grieving is nevertheless a recommended introduction to contemporary Mexican literature.

[sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

as someone who’s heard vague stories about the violence that’s nowhere near gone in mexico this was terrifyingly eye opening. from the very first line to the last page these essays don’t hold back from giving you the reality of the grief that comes after such extreme violence. i really don’t think these essays would be as powerful if it weren’t for the matter of fact way cristina rivera garza describes the femicide + cartel violence in mexico

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some essays were a bit complicated to read and I would have loved to read this in the original Spanish but it is almost impossible to find… either way I love cristina rivera garza I love the way she writes and I love how she tells things that can’t be told and I only wish she wrote in English so I could include her in my research alas maybe one day

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one that requires another read before writing a review, or at least going over a couple of the essays a lot more in depth.
I can see myself coming back to this collection again and again.

[annabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cried. I weep. I got angry. Finished in less than the 24 hrs. i love love love this book❤️

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very powerful collection of essays, ranging from 2ish pages to around 20. Some are book reviews, others are articles, and they all center on Mexico's "wounds" that are referred to in the title.

These wounds are, at various times and also at the same time, political, social, and physical and stem from Mexico's drug war (officially begun in 2006, but whose roots extend back much further). They are political in that Mexico's politicians and governmental systems have enabled the current state of things, social in that people's lives (particularly--but not exclusively--in the country's northern territories) have been irrevocably changed by waves of femicides and drug-related violence, and physical in that she describes the mutilated bodies that all-too-frequently appear around freeways and public spaces throughout Mexico.

Because these articles were all written as discreet pieces, there are many ideas and references repeated throughout, but they bear repeating. As someone who is not very familiar with the background of Mexico's famed drug war, I appreciated hearing several times about its origins and how it has affected millions of Mexicans. I also appreciated the names of authors whom Rivera Garza mentions throughout (at times as witnesses and at times as victims, unfortunately)--I hope to look them up and read their work. I feel like I learned so much reading this book, although much of what I learned was tragic.

Some of the particular pieces that stood out to me were the introduction, The Claimant (more of creative non-fiction, which splices together spoken words, a journal article, and words inspired by poetry), On Diary of Pain, Nonfiction, The Morning After, On Our Toes, and Touching is a Verb. The latter piece, in particular, is an incredibly insightful piece about how the USA and Mexico have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Booker’s translation does a great job of bringing Rivera Garza’s words to an English-reading (and not Spanish-reading) audience, and a work of this quality should be read far and wide (and lead, as Rivera Garza hopes, to “the end of indolence.”

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

El 11 de diciembre del 2006 Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, presidente de México, declaró guerra contra el narcotráfico. Esta guerra ha traído a México la violencia, la muerte y el dolor más profundo. Según Subcomandante Marcos, anterior líder del EZLN y portavoz, la guerra contra el narcotráfico ha hecho México “ una nación destruida, despoblada, rota irremediablemente” (“Guerra contra ‘narcos’ destruirá México", señala líder del EZLN”). Muchos escritores notables han escrito mucho sobre la situación actual de México resultado de la guerra contra el narcotráfico, incluso Cristina Rivera Garza en este libro conmovedor Dolerse: textos desde un país herido. En este libro fuerte, Garza hace un trabajo único para comunicar el dolor profundo de México por recopilar un compendio de textos compuesto de la poesía, el ensayo y la crónica.

Me interesó mucho este libro porque no sabía nada con respecto a la situación actual de México. Nunca escuchamos en los Estados Unidos de las noticias sobre esta guerra y violencia en México, pero después de leer este libro, me gustaría mucho investigar esta situación escalofriante de México y ayudar mi pais entender la situación y el dolor de México que impulsan muchos inmigrantes venir a los EE.UU.

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea and construction of this book better than the book itself. Some of the essays were absolute gems. Hard to read, yes, but important in their pain and truth and beauty. There are a few lines and images that will stay with me, for sure. And, the message of speaking and writing your truth, even if it is frowned upon or dangerous, resonates with me. But many of the essays felt like book reviews or article reviews of literature I have not read, and the overly academic approach took away from what ultimately was intended to be an elegy - elegy as activism, to be more precise. I’d like to take this author’s class on this topic, but as a stand-alone book it fell flat for me.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

This is more of a poetic and emotional plea on state-endorsed violence in Mexico rather than an informative treatise, which is fine, but not really what I was expecting. Some of the essays were incredible, while others were so abstract that I couldn't really understand what Rivera Garza was talking about. The audiobook narrator was fantastic, but I'm not sure if audio was the best format for this.

[Marian P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by MacArthur Foundation fellow Cristina Rivera Garza, Grieving is an astute compendium of essays lamenting the longstanding history of femicide in Mexico, notably in —the Golden Quadrilateral: —the states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Durango. The harrowing events transpiring in Mexico are nothing new. Drug trafficking has been co-opted in Mexico since the mid-century when counterinsurgents, supported by the government, were paid off by drug cartels. In turn, drug cartels were given free rein by the government. Drug lords have been willing to do anything to turn a profit, even killing innocent civilians.

The flip side of the horror and violence is a country in a deep state of mourning—grieving. In fact, the author has been personally affected, as her younger sister, a 19-year- old architecture student in Mexico City, was murdered by her boyfriend in 1990. That painful death compelled her to write, to attempt to escape her pain and grieve. The crux of the book pivots on the act of grieving. As Rivera Garza eloquently puts it,

“where suffering lies, so too, does grieving: the deep sorrow that binds within emotional communities willing and able to face life anew, even if it means, or especially when it means, radically revising and altering the world we share.”

I have thought about this quote countless times. The penetrating anguish experienced by Mexicans is palpable, heart wrenching. Beyond the pale. But, I’ve also reflected on the pain and sorrow felt currently within the United States on two fronts—the hundreds of Black women and men who have lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement and rampant deaths caused by COVID-19. Rivera Garza illuminates the ways in which Mexicans have “radically revised” their lives establishing such social movements as #ropasucia to air the dirty laundry of gender violence perpetrated by men, especially those in positions of power. In the U.S. Black Lives Matter has been the catalyst for change, including efforts to defund the police and to influence reforms of the law enforcement where systemic racism runs deep. The lack of response to COVID-19 by the Trump administration also means we must work toward “altering the world we share.” The president’s inability to take either crisis seriously means it is long past time for him to wave the white flag.

The author brilliantly shows a nation in crisis since the 1970s. Not only are women being murdered, border residents also live in fear. Public spaces have been radically altered. Children are unable to play outside or zoom by on their bicycles. Yet in the face of fear and violence, there are acts of resistance. Artist Alejandro Santiago erected 2,501 life-sized statues of migrants in Oaxaca representing those migrants who died enroute crossing over the U.S.-Mexico border up to the time of Santiago’s own migration. The statues of men, women, and children are naked. Tattoos mark the men’s backs. Santiago notes that he never felt more naked than when he was interrogated by an ICE officer, which is why the statues also appear unclothed. The awe-inspiring exhibition evokes pain, but it is also a nexus of resistance. Santiago has inverted the migration narrative in Oaxaca. His fellow artisans, employed on the project, have been granted a reason to stay.

The book also helped me connect the dots of burgeoning feminist literature by Latinx authors such as Fernanda Melchor and, Maria Fernanda Ampuero; women writers in Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina and other Latin American countries. These writers indict what Rivera Garza reveals in her masterful nonfiction work of which the majority of the pages of my own copy have been annotated or dogeared. Femicide does not occur only on the outskirts of remote towns and villages. It happens everywhere. It is perpetrated by “normal men” who degrade, brutalize, rape, and then murder women. Cristina Rivera Garza reminds us that femicide is only a small step away from economic inequality, sexual harassment, and domestic abuse. It lies in the attitudes toward women where the ‘f word’—feminism—remains a dirty word. This book is highly recommended for those interested in feminism, social justice, and political capital in Mexico.

[Joann Im · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cristina Rivera Garza's Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country is a thought-provoking, powerful journalism and personal hybrid collection of essays highlighting the systemic violence in contemporary Mexico and along the U.S.-Mexico border shattering communities and families alike in the name of this failed policy called "war on drugs''. This book is fairly slim but I took my time reading it as there were so many to process, digest and reflect upon. Rivera Garza's staggering statistics of femicide and cartel violence in Mexico supported by personal accounts from victims' families and various cases immerses us into the horror and the rage caused by these injustices. Her piercing commentaries shattered me into a million pieces. Amongst the darkness, Rivera Garza masterfully discovers strength, resilience and hope in their continuous collective fight for justice. Her powerful weapon is the act of writing. The use of language is a concrete exercise in politics. It is a stand in our beliefs and act of resistance. It provides a space to grieve and to never forget because we are a country in mourning. This is Garza's testament to language, her weapon of choice in processing grief and the existence of imagination that extends beyond our perception. 

Grieving... is a haunting and poetic collection of essays that will expand our minds. Her sensitive and respectful tone humanizes all of the victims and their families in the atrocities inflicted upon them. This essay will make one feel enraged, sorrow and admiration of the collective spirit in the ongoing battle because to stay silent is to give in to the unacceptable. Sarah Booker's translation instilled vibrancy and echoed a sense of needed urgency through her prose. A stunning and illuminating work that needs to reach a wider audience.