It took writer Cristina Rivera Garza (Matamoros, Tamaulipas, 61) three decades to reconstruct her little sister’s story. Book after book, every novel, every essay and every poem took her there: to Liliana, who was murdered in 1990, at the age of twenty, by her ex-boyfriend. And the result was Liliana’s invincible summer (Random House), a shocking book that won him the 2024 Pulitzer Prize and premieres on November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, as a theatrical monologue at the Conde Duque Cultural Center in Madrid. The play is performed by actress Cecilia Suarez, the text is written by Amaranta Osorio and directed by Juan Carlos Fischer.
Rivera Garza arrives on time for her appointment at Casa de México in Spain. It’s a cold, gray day in November, and it’s getting a little late jet lag He just arrived in Madrid from the United States, where he lives. He sits quietly, takes off his coat, and starts talking. She wears small gold glasses that contrast with her long gray hair, glasses reminiscent of the glasses her sister wore in well-known photos of her. “I don’t want people to know Liliana as a victim, but as a kind, smart, funny girl,” she says, and stresses the importance of building a collective memory that honors that memory and the memory of thousands of other murdered women.
The Mexican writer, accustomed to crossing literary and geographical borders, is a free woman who moves between narrative, historical research, poetry, critical theory and essays, but always with stories full of sensitivity, speaking of something more: because the personal is political and in Mexico 10 women are murdered every day, according to official statistics. This background has made her one of the most popular Latin American authors today.
I ask. When did you feel ready to write the story of your sister Liliana?
answer. You are never ready to write. Often typing is forced in this process. But I don’t think I was ready until we were ready as a society to tell this story in a different way.
S. how?
R. One that questions dominant patriarchal narratives and makes room for the perspectives of women and their communities. Writing, with its great critical ability, can destroy the existing narrative in society. I didn’t want to stay in murder and crime. I truly cared that readers could experience what I went through when I opened my sister’s boxes and felt like I was there. I tried to respect as much as possible what she left me and stopped seeing victims as something inert. More recently, the Irish writer Róisín O’Donnell told me that the best way to refer to women like Liliana should not be as “victims,” but as “targets of violence.”
S. Did you find out something about your sister that you didn’t know?
R. Many things. Liliana’s sense of humor, her sarcasm, is alluded to later on. I knew Liliana was kind and funny, but her degree of handling sarcasm seemed to be legendary. I also knew I wrote, but I didn’t know to what degree. That’s why I say in the book that at that time she was the real writer in the family.
S. What does it mean to you, 30 years later, to delve into the boxes that held Liliana’s papers?
R. As always with files, you don’t know what you’re looking for until you find it. At first I wanted to know the names and phone numbers to reopen the investigation, and what the archives gave me was something completely different and overwhelming. Liliana’s messages, notes, notes, the kind of things one now leaves on Instagram or TikTok are collected. Little pieces of life that I had to remove jumped out at me.
S. You talk a lot about grief in your work. How do you combine this great pain with the need to write this story?
R. In cases of violence like this, the duels are usually very calm, and force is used. They are characterized by guilt and shame. That shifted radically with the publication of the book and had to do with extending grief to others and embracing them in the language of pain. Unfortunately, or fortunately, sexual violence is a tragedy that affects many people. Telling a story is also a form of condemnation.
S. Your book has created a community in many countries, what do you take away from all of this?
R. I’ve had very meaningful and intimate conversations with readers, and with very young people, for whom Liliana’s story or meeting Liliana was, as they say, a turning point. They recognize things that are before our eyes that are even difficult to name, such as jealousy, manipulation, or blackmail.
S. What was it like talking to your sister’s friends after all these years?
R. Oof! I was touched by their generosity and how they opened their memory. The conversation has been stagnant for 30 years, and for all of us it was the first opportunity to think together and talk about an event that marked our lives forever.
S. Do you think this is also a way to achieve justice?
R. definitely. Collective memory in favor of victims is also justice. At first I thought justice was criminal, even punitive. But I realized that there were other ways to achieve justice. Although legal justice was not served, it was very important that they were remembered in this way in memory of Liliana and other women who have lost them to sexual violence. It is a major factor in the kind of world we build. The fact that Liliana and the book about Liliana are part of the struggle to eradicate sexual violence and femicide moves me so much.
S. What can theater contribute to a book like this?
R. I see it as a kind of translation. The language in theater is different. Seeing the scene, the people, the lights, the breathing, the looks, involves an experience, an exhaustion that the book reader does not experience. Yesterday I had my first contact with the play on stage and there was a silence filled with the audience. There was a very strong connection between the audience and Cecilia (Suarez) and that affected me.
S. I mentioned that the lack of language condemns us, and that what is not named does not exist. What can you do when words fail?
R. There are many things we can do, among other things, talk more and not repeat that these crimes are crimes of passion. Gender violence starts from inequality and has structural roots. Looking at it from a woman’s point of view shows that it is a crime that grows, from the accumulation of shameful acts, until it is too late.
We must also draw attention to the state’s involvement in ensuring the security of all its citizens and the urgent need to reduce impunity rates, which in Mexico reach 95% for the killing of women.
Finally, it is important to have self-criticism as a society. For too long, we have shown too much tolerance for women’s suffering.
Phone 016 helps victims of sexual violence, their families and those around them 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in 53 different languages. The number is not registered on the phone bill, but the call must be deleted from the device. You can also contact via email016-online@igualdad.gob.esAnd via WhatsApp on 016 000 600. Minors can call the ANAR Foundation phone number 900 20 20 10. If it is an emergency, you can call 112 or the phone numbers of the National Police (091) and the Civil Guard (062). If you cannot connect, you can use the ALERTCOPS application, through which an alert signal is sent to the police with geolocation.