Silencio

Silencio tells the story of Águeda, a young woman mourning the death of her mother. When the townspeople deny her a grave in the local cemetery, the mother’s body vanishes. Águeda knows her father is hiding it, and when she confronts him, he punishes her defiance with confinement.

Serving her sentence in a house, Águeda lives within those walls as if in a second maternal womb—one that will transform her. In chapters alternating between the real and the imaginary, she mourns the destroyed futures of those who were silenced as she listens to her neighbors’ stories of loss—a child worker; a boy from the Tacuate community; and Mexican refugees in Canada.

Through the walls, she senses the world: birds in dialogue, the beauty of the arid landscape, experiences of love and devastation. She comes to realize that in this mountain region that resembles the author’s hometown of Oaxaca, where organized crime holds sway, many—like her—mourn their dead and search for the disappeared.