Luvina 117 (Winter 2024)

Thanks to my friend, poet, and editor, Silvia Castillero, for including my review of Alberto Chimal’s novel, “La visitante” [The Visitor], in this historic (and enormous!) issue of Luvina magazine, launched at the 2024 Guadalajara Book Fair.

I see a role for myself as a seer of contemporary Mexican fiction because I spot masterpieces where Mexican critics see nothing. Incredibly, mine is the only review written about this extraordinary novel set in early 1970s Mexico City that digs into the roots of the misogyny, machismo, classism, feminicide, and violence that plague Mexican society while offering readers an entertaining, smooth, and profoundly disturbing read.

Chimal is among the few Latin American men to center compelling female characters; Colombian master noir novelist Octavio Escobar Giraldo and Nicaraguan Sergio Ramírez are two others who come to mind.

This master of imaginative fiction also distinguishes himself by proposing unheimlich obstacles for his protagonists, clever and close enough to reality (think Poe) to unsettle the reader with the notion that such events could really happen. Chimal lays down layers of social critique and emotional drama with masterful storytelling by a writer in the prime of his career. This novel merits translation and publication in English. Interested? Let’s talk. (La visitante, Alberto Chimal, Planeta 2022)