Dead Girls

Argentinian writer Sevla Almada’s Dead Girls the story of three teenage girls murdered in the 1980s — Andrea, 19, María Luisa, 15, and Sarita, 20. All of their murders were unsolved, and there are no leads or information on any of the cases. Originally published in Spanish in 2014, this version is translated by Annie McDermott. Their stories are not connected, yet Almada expertly weaves them together to craft a narrative of femicide in her home country.

“All the responsibility for what happened to us was laid at our feet: if you stay out late you might be raped, if you talk to strangers you might be raped, if you come back from a dance by yourself you might be raped. If you were raped, it was always your fault.”

Dead Girls is structured as a journalistic novel, with Almada searching to understand what happened to each of the three girls, while painting a larger picture of the misogynistic culture and violence. She also brings in what she learned growing up in rural Argentina (called “the interior,” or la Argentina profundia”). In the author’s note on the translated edition, Almada notes “As I wrote the stories of Andrea, María Luisa, and Sarita, fragments of my own life story and those of women I knew began to work their way in. My friends and I were still alive, but we could have been Andrea, María Luisa, or Sarita. We were just luckier.”

In many ways, Dead Girls is testimony. It’s bearing witness to the horrors of women and girls dying, at the hands of men in their life and strangers. I loved this line: “Maybe this is your mission: to gather the bones of these girls, piece them together, give them a voice and then let them run, free and unfettered, wherever they have to go.”

Rating: ★★★★★