Book Talk: "When Crime Fiction Matters: A Transborder Dialogue with Lucha Corpi, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, and Patricia Valladares"

In the last twenty years, noir feminist narratives have had a steady ascent into the Latin American and U.S. Latina/o literary scene. Chicana writers Lucha Corpi, born in Veracruz, México, and Alicia Gaspar de Alba, from El Paso, are a part of a small group of U.S. Latina writers who have contributed to the noir-crime fiction genre. With their novels celebrating important literary milestones since their publications, Black Widow’s Wardrobe (2000) enters its fifteenth anniversary, and Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders (2005), ending its first decade, the transborder issues unfolded in each novel continue to be palpable on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. These Chicana noir narratives are underscored and complemented by Mexico City-native Patricia Valladares, whose debut novel Tan frío como el infierno (2014) picks up the literary conversation on social, political, and economic issues currently confronted by twenty-first century women from Mexico City to Palestine.  Each writer in her own way combines activism with art.  The panel will bring these three noir feminist authors together for the first time for a transborder dialogue to reflect on the origins and the impact of their written work and their binational activism in an era where noir-crime fiction provides an everyday mirror to nota roja realities lived by women in Mexico and the United States. 

A light reception will follow the presentation. Books will be available for purchase at the event.

This event is co-curated by Sandra Ruiz, visiting lecturer in Chicana/o Studies and Spanish & Portuguese, and Héctor Calderón, professor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese.

Cosponsored by the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies, the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, the Center for the Study of Women, and the CSRC.

This event is FREE.

A recording of this event can be found on the UCLA CSRC YouTube channel.