Liliana's Summer

Did she sense the danger?
Did she believe the threat had passed her by, or quite the opposite?

That day, Cristina traveled from her home in Texas to the Attorney General's Office in Mexico City, hoping to find a file for an unsolved case: the murder of her beloved sister, Liliana.

In the summer of 1990, twenty-year-old Liliana was murdered by her former partner and found dead in her apartment, and the killer has yet to be apprehended. For thirty years, her sister Cristina had never sought the truth, but when she began her quest only to find the file missing, she suddenly understood: if the records no longer existed, it would be as if her sister had never existed, and her experiences in this world would be worthless—especially in contemporary Mexico, where gender-based violence is severe, and countless women, like Liliana, lose their lives due to intimate partner violence.

Mexico was the first country in the world to legislate "femicide" as a criminal offense. However, even with symbolic victories for women's rights within the national system, the number of femicide cases in Mexico continues to rise year after year. On International Women's Day in 2019, Cristina's friends painted Liliana's name all over Mexico City, and Cristina embarked on a path to seek truth and justice.

"My name is Cristina Rivera Garza. I am writing as the family member of Liliana Rivera Garza. She was murdered in Mexico City on July 16, 1990. I am writing to request a complete copy of the case file from the Public Affairs Department, number 40/913/990-07."

In this, her first work of non-fiction, contemporary Mexican author Cristina Rivera Garza traces her sister Liliana's growth and transformation, describing her passionate nature, her troubled and violent intimate relationships, and the events that ultimately led to her death.

Rather than focusing on the grief and demands of the bereaved, Rivera Garza skillfully uses her expertise as a scholar, novelist, and poet to collect and organize her sister's handwritten letters, diaries, and interviews with friends and family, reconstructing her sister's life. She captures scenes filled with silent violence, carefully discerning when to speak out and when to remain silent, when to intervene as a scholar, and when to let her parents or others explain what happened.

"I realized I had to produce the documents, reports, testimonies, interviews, and evidence that the state could not provide, to replace the official archives with our own, a treasure trove of touch and breath, of voices, intimacy, and emotion. I want to give existence not just to memory, but to the owner of that memory itself."

By allowing Liliana to speak for herself within the pages of the book, Rivera Garza delicately presents the complexity of her sister's character traits, her understanding of love, and her thoughts during her struggles in intimate relationships. It also makes readers realize that even in the darkest moments, Liliana never lost the ability to see herself as the master of her own life—in fact, in the last summer of her life, Liliana was freer than ever to love, think, and travel.

In this genre-defying memoir, combining investigative reporting and autobiography, Rivera Garza confronts the trauma of losing a loved one. First written in Spanish, and then a second time in English, she not only uncovers the truth of the case but also continuously examines her own position as a writer, exploring how this major tragedy in her life profoundly impacted her as a person and her long-standing advocacy for ending gender-based violence and her concern for women's lives. The book's text is filled with emotion and willpower, making it both a political act and a declaration against the straitjacket of patriarchy.

"Her own background confined her in a corset called machismo, cut down by the sharpest blades of the patriarchal system. But Liliana, who sometimes described herself as sad or disappointed, insisted on not falling until the last moment. 'I have to get back up,' she said more than once. 'I know how to get back up,' she reminded herself when disappointment or anxiety overcame her. I deeply believe in that Liliana. I deeply love that Liliana and all Lilianas that ever were or ever will be."