Jorge Ibarguengoitia, Las Muertas [The Dead Girls]

Charlotte Lange (University of Strathclyde)

Ed. by Ailsa Peate, University of Westminster
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.3: Hispanic Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ben Bollig (University of Oxford), Ceire Broderick (University College Cork), Nuala Finnegan (University College Cork), Anna Forné (Gothenburg University), Cara Levey (University College Cork), Lori Oxford (Western Carolina University), Ailsa Peate (University of Westminster)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1954 - c. 1981

Places

Mexico (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Crime and Detective
Satire

Resources

Jorge Ibargüengoitia (1928) was one of Mexico’s sharpest and most ironic chroniclers until his untimely death in 1983. Las muertas [The Dead Girls] (1977) is the grotesque fictionalisation of the infamous “Las Poquianchis” scandal. 1964 saw the arrest of three madrotas [madams], the Baladro sisters, in the state of Guanajuato where they ran various brothels, buried prostitutes and aborted babies on their unlawful premises (Clark: 1989, p.21). The novel is a humorous attack against certain moral hypocrisies present in Mexican politics and society. It is also a parody of creative nonfiction, particularly of New Journalism, and questions the appropriateness of traditional crime …

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2711 words

Citation: Lange, Charlotte. "Las Muertas". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 November 2022 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=40687, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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