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Published Feb 2014
224 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A haunting story of love and survival that introduces an unforgettable literary heroine
Ladydi Garcia Martínez is fierce, funny and smart. She was born into a world where being a girl is a dangerous thing. In the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, women must fend for themselves, as their men have left to seek opportunities elsewhere. Here in the shadow of the drug war, bodies turn up on the outskirts of the village to be taken back to the earth by scorpions and snakes. School is held sporadically, when a volunteer can be coerced away from the big city for a semester. In Guerrero the drug lords are kings, and mothers disguise their daughters as sons, or when that fails they "make them ugly" – cropping their hair, blackening their teeth - anything to protect them from the rapacious grasp of the cartels. And when the black SUVs roll through town, Ladydi and her friends burrow into holes in their backyards like animals, tucked safely out of sight.
While her mother waits in vain for her husband's return, Ladydi and her friends dream of a future that holds more promise than mere survival, finding humor, solidarity and fun in the face of so much tragedy. When Ladydi is offered work as a nanny for a wealthy family in Acapulco, she seizes the chance, and finds her first taste of love with a young caretaker there. But when a local murder tied to the cartel implicates a friend, Ladydi's future takes a dark turn. Despite the odds against her, this spirited heroine's resilience and resolve bring hope to otherwise heartbreaking conditions.
An illuminating and affecting portrait of women in rural Mexico, and a stunning exploration of the hidden consequences of an unjust war, Prayers for the Stolen is an unforgettable story of friendship, family, and determination.
"Clement is more a poet than a documentarian, and the girls and women of the village she chronicles are complex individuals...Clement treats the brutal material honestly...and ultimately allows Ladydi to continue to hope." - Publishers Weekly
"A stark portrait of women abused or abandoned by every side in an awful conflict." - Kirkus
"Prayers for the Stolen is a magnificent story, filled with a wisdom so dense and ancient as to seem almost unbearable." - Rick Bass, author of Why I Came West
"What can I say about this novel? That it's extraordinary, electric, heartbreaking, profound? There aren't enough adjectives to describe how moved I was by the story of Ladydi and her friends, of their tragic lives and quiet fortitude in spite of a world that conspires against them. Maybe it's enough just to say this: Prayers for the Stolen is the best book I've read in years." - Cristina Henríquez, author of The World in Half
"The most enchanting journey I've taken in a long, long time, and the most important." - DBC Pierre, Man Booker Prize-winning author of Vernon God Little
This information about Prayers for the Stolen was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jennifer Clement has studied literature in New York and Paris. She was awarded the NEA Fellowship for Literature for Prayers For The Stolen, which will be her first novel published in the United States. She currently lives in Mexico City and is President of PEN Mexico.
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