Prayers for the Stolen

Prayers for the Stolen, by Jennifer Clement

This was a beautiful, heartbreaking novel about Mexico, written by poet Jennifer Clement, who was the president of PEN Mexico.

"The best thing you can be in Mexico is an ugly girl."

Ladydi Garcia Martinez dresses as a boy, because in her mountain community near Guerrero, girls are constantly kidnapped and sold into prostitution to support the drug trade. The mothers dig holes for their daughters to hide in when the black SUVs come to their homes to search for new girls to snatch.

Every day in Mexico, adolescent girls and young women are abducted from their homes and either never heard from again or found dumped dead and abused. Some become sex slaves to drug lords, and others are sexually trafficked to brothels in Mexico and abroad. Sexual abuse in Mexico has exploded as the drug trade has soared.

Although difficult to read, this novel is a wonderful story about women and daughters who have to survive on their own wits, resiliency during a time of great trauma, and fierce love that is hard to comprehend in our white, American existence.