Spanish / Mexico
Salvajes
(Wild ones)
Ramos Revillas, Antonio
(text)
México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2021. – 151 p.
(Series: A través del espejo)
ISBN 978-607-16-6977-3
City | Poverty | Violence | Social disparity | Justice
Reading age: 12+
White Ravens issue: 2021
In the hills over the city of Monterrey, where the streets gradually worsen, the houses become shabbier, and eventually there’s no way forward, Efraín lives with his mother and his brothers. Their mother is arrested during one of the innumerable raids in the neighbourhood, which marks the start of a long battle for the boy and his brothers, as they try to free their mother from the clutches of the state authorities. No one lobbies for Efraín and his family, and no one respects them, because fundamentally they are seen as good-for-nothings or criminals. Gripping, unflinching and fast-paced, Antonio Ramos Revillas’s novel portrays this life at the margins where human individuals count for almost nothing. The book also describes the desire and the striving to make the most of a life that holds no perspectives. “Salvajes” is persuasively written because the story names things as they are, yet doesn’t voyeuristically parade the characters. Instead, it gives them a voice. [JW]