And it wasn’t called “Femicide”

Cristina Rivera Garza, L’invincibile estate di Liliana
[Liliana’s Invincible Summer], SUR 2023

In 1990, Liliana Rivera Garza was murdered in Mexico City by her ex-boyfriend, who vanished after a warrant was issued for his arrest and remains at large to this day. The book, winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize, is written by her sister Cristina Rivera Garza, a renowned author. It took Cristina thirty years to open the boxes containing Liliana’s personal belongings and piece together the unfinished life of her twenty-year-old sister, a young architecture student. Cristina recalls that in 1990, the term “femicide” didn’t exist. Such crimes were classified as second-degree murders, often dismissed as crimes of passion committed in a fit of rage. Cristina sought to make Liliana known through her writings, the testimonies of university friends, and the people who loved her. She painstakingly reconstructed the twisted path of a love relationship that had turned toxic until Liliana decided to leave her abusive boyfriend. Quoting a poem by Albert Camus, Liliana had written: “I finally understood that in the midst of winter, I discovered within me an invincible summer”. But he—the killer—decided that Liliana’s dream of pursuing a master’s degree in England with her friends had to be cut short.