Chicas muertas is an excellent literary work that achieves its objective: to draw attention to the gender-based violence and femicide phenomena affecting girls and women in rural Argentina at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. With a simple and direct style, Almada’s work offers an effective mixture of chronicle and fiction, denouncing the coercive forces that limit women’s freedom and impose silence over their mistreatment and killings. We have seen how Almada presents these coercive forces as social and legal structures, supported by the machista ideology and the impunity over the crimes. In this sense, femicides are seen as a form of political violence that institutionalises women’s marginalisation and silences their killings with the collusion of the relevant authorities. On the other hand, Almada’s investigation of the murders of María Luisa, Andrea and Sarita and her childhood memories in the same environment brings to light a society complicit in the violence against girls and women, which is only addressed amid rumours, silence and double meanings.
This chapter has looked at Chicas muertas from two perspectives. (1) Along the lines of the anti-femicide activism in the region, Chicas muertas can be interpreted as an attempt to draw attention to the violence against women and femicides in rural Argentina. In this regard, Almada offers a realistic approach to the latent violence in rural Argentina, along the lines of hegemonic masculinity towards women and girls. She highlights how the lack of prospects in an impoverished society often forces many girls and women to get involved with politicians and businessmen and to prostitute themselves as the only means of survival. Chicas muertas therefore indicates the urgent need for this renegotiation and reconfiguration of gender norms (in particular the ideology that legitimises male control over women’s bodies and sexuality) towards a fluid and empathetic social model that is inclusive of the underprivileged. Ultimately, making the victims’ stories known is a call for greater legal and sociological attention to be paid to the victims’ families, the cases and the perpetrators.
(2) Chicas muertas aims to incorporate the deaths of girls and women from a remote area into the official memory of the country, in line with the testimonial literary tradition in Argentina. Yet, Almada does not intend to discover the identities of the girls’ murderers but rather to incorporate their tragic existence and destinies into the official discourse of the nation. Almada meets her objective by bringing the forgotten cases to light in this way. However, the lack of first-person testimonies leads the author to use other resources. Although they do not detract from the credibility of her research, they distract from the main objective of her investigation and distance the novel from the testimonial corpus of Argentina.
Finally, it is worth recalling Almada’s words about her youth in the town: ‘For me, adolescence was very hard. What kept me quite savvy and sane was knowing that I was going to leave town’.
1 ‘Para mí fue muy dura la adolescencia. Lo que me mantuvo bastante espabilada y cuerda era saber que yo me iba a ir del pueblo’: Silvina Friera, ‘Selva Almada y Ladrilleros, Último Título de la Colección 8M. “Son Vidas Entrampadas en Sí Mismas”’, Página 12, 30 June 2018; https://www.pagina12.com.ar/125171-son-vidas-entrampadas-en-si-mismas [accessed 20 November 2020]. And yet, as she herself tells us in her novel, it is not enough to run away and stop talking about things, to pretend that they do not exist, so that they cease to exist.
Chicas muertas could not be more opportune at a time when Argentinean society (and indeed all of Latin America) is beginning to become aware of the urgent need to confront the issue of femicidal violence and to give visibility to the victims. Only in this way will society begin to delegitimise the violence against women in the region.