It wouldn’t be incorrect to call this a novel of collateral damage. Despite the odds against her, this spirited heroine’s resilience and resolve bring hope to otherwise heartbreaking conditions.Īn 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.A young girl struggles to survive under the desolate but terrifying umbrella of the Mexican drug wars. But when a local murder tied to the cartel implicates a friend, Ladydi’s future takes a dark turn.

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. 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. 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. 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. School is held sporadically, when a volunteer can be coerced away from the big city for a semester. 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. In the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, women must fend for themselves, as their men have left to seek opportunities elsewhere. She was born into a world where being a girl is a dangerous thing. Ladydi Garcia Martínez is fierce, funny, and smart. Beguiling, and even crazily enchanting.”-Francisco Goldman, New York Times Book ReviewįINALIST FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER PRIZE “ Prayers for the Stolen gives us words for what we haven’t had words for before, like something translated from a dream in a secret language. The haunting novel of love and survival that inspired Mexico’s official submission for International Feature Film-now shortlisted for the 94th Academy Awards® and streaming on Netflix

Prayers for the stolen novel