The Dead Girls

Jorge Ibargüengoitia · 1928–1983 · Mexico

Originally Las muertas (Spanish) · translated by Asa Zatz

Why it matters

A real serial-murder brothel scandal is fictionalized with cool, deadpan comic wit that indicts an entire corrupt system in passing. Mexican satire at its driest and sharpest.

At a glance

Deadpan, documentary-style prose narrates atrocity with cool comic restraint.