Las muertas

For the television series, see Las muertas (TV series). For the archeological site, see La Muerta.
The Dead Girls
Cover of the first edition
AuthorJorge Ibargüengoitia
Original titleLas muertas
TranslatorAsa Zatz
Cover artistJoy Laville (1st Spanish ed.)
LanguageSpanish
GenreNovel
Set inCentral Mexico, 1950s/1960s
PublisherJoaquín Mortiz (orig.), Chatto & Windus/Avon Books (transl.)
Publication date
1977
Publication placeMexico City
Published in English
1982
Pages156
ISBN968-27-0291-7 (Mortiz)
Preceded byEstas ruinas que ves 
Followed byDos crímenes 

Las muertas is a 1977 novel by Mexican author Jorge Ibargüengoitia, originally published in Spanish by Joaquín Mortiz in Mexico City.[1] Asa Zatz's English translation The Dead Girls was first published in 1982 by Chatto & Windus in the United Kingdom and by Avon Books in the United States and was reprinted by Picador Classics in 2018.[2][3][4]

Published between Estas ruinas que ves (1975) and Dos crímenes (1979), it is considered a part of Ibargüengoitia's Plan de Abajo trilogy: three novels set in the fictional state of the same name, which resembles the author's home state of Guanajuato.[5]

Cover art for the first edition was taken from a painting by Joy Laville, Ibargüengoitia's wife.[1][6]

Development

Ibargüengoitia began work on the novel in 1965, after the 1964 trial of the González Valenzuela sisters – dubbed Las Poquianchis in the scandalous press coverage that ensued – who ran a prostitution and human-trafficking ring in Guanajuato and on whose property scores of bodies were found.[2][7]

Over the 13 years it took him to write it, the book went through several different versions. The first, titled El libro de las Poquianchis – completed in 1965 but unpublished – was a factual linear chronicle in which Ibargüengoitia sought to challenge the sensationalist and often exaggerated coverage provided by the popular press, particularly the weekly ¡Alarma!, to identify shortcomings in the legal proceedings, and to cast light on the social and economic conditions behind the case. The author described it as 100 pages that were "neither a reportage nor an essay nor a novel" and resolved to rewrite it as a novel.[a]

Between 1965 and 1975, he worked intermittently[b] on the project, fictionalising the locations and characters' names, introducing a non-linear structure, and experimenting alternatively with a first-person autobiographical narrative, using an omniscient fictional narrator, and having each chapter narrated by a different character. The final, published version of Las muertas was written in 1976, completed in the United States while he was attending the University of Iowa's international writing programme.[2]

Plot

Still loosely based on the real-life case of Las Poquianchis, the novel tells the story of the Baladro sisters and the three brothels they run in Plan de Abajo and the neighbouring state of Mezcala during the late 1950s and early 1960s. It opens in December 1963 – towards the end of the story – when Serafina, the youngest sister, in an act of vengeance, opens fire on a bakery owned by Simón Corona, her former lover. Simón reports the attack to the authorities, which triggers the downfall of the sisters' business empire, the story of which is told in a non-linear narrative over 17 chapters. It concludes with the court convicting the guilty parties to lengthy prison terms for a string of crimes and ordering the surrender of their properties to pay due compensation to their nine surviving victims. The appendices include an authentic photograph of the González Valenzuela sisters and some of the prostitutes they employed, their faces erased and replaced with numbers identifying them as the characters in the novel.[2][4]

Adaptations

An eight-hour radionovela based on the novel, adapted by Carmen Limón and produced by Guadalupe Cortés, was first broadcast on Radio Educación in 1990.[8][9]

An adaptation for the theatre titled Las muertas de Jorge Ibargüengoitia, written and directed by Guanajuato-born Luis Martín Solís and performed by students of the Universidad Veracruzana, was staged in Xalapa, Veracruz, and Monterrey, Nuevo León, in 2015.[10][11] Solís's play was performed again in Guanajuato in 2020[12][13] and in Coahuila in 2022.[14]

A six-part television adaptation of the novel, directed by Luis Estrada, was released on Netflix in September 2025.[7]

Felipe Cazals's 1976 film Las Poquianchis is not based on Ibargüengoitia's novel, despite occasionally being advertised as such.[15][16][17]

Notes

  1. ^ The published book opens with an epigraph explaining that "Some of the events narrated herein are real. All the characters are imaginary."[2]
  2. ^ Estas ruinas que ves was written during one hiatus in 1973–1974.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b "Obra: Las muertas". Enciclopedia de la literatura en México. FLM–CONACULTA. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Lámbarry, Alejandro (2021). "Manuscritos, inéditos, cuadernos y correspondencia: la creación de Las muertas de Jorge Ibargüengoitia". Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica. 69 (2). El Colegio de México: Mexico City: 711. doi:10.24201/nrfh.v69i2.3752.
  3. ^ "Obra: The Dead Girls". Enciclopedia de la literatura en México. FLM–CONACULTA. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
  4. ^ a b "The Dead Girls". Pan Macmillan. Retrieved 11 October 2025.
  5. ^ Lemus, Rafael (24 September 2025). "Plan de Abajo: instrucciones para reír (o no reír) con Jorge Ibargüengoitia". Gatopardo.
  6. ^ Bucio, Erika P. (25 July 2023). "Honran a Joy Laville en su centenario". El Norte.
  7. ^ a b "The true story behind Netflix's Las Muertas, via one of Mexico's most celebrated writers". Mexico News Daily. 16 September 2025.
  8. ^ "Las muertas". Catálogo de Radio Educación. Secretaría de Cultura. Retrieved 19 October 2025.
  9. ^ "Audio: Las muertas". Enciclopedia de la literatura en México. FLM–CONACULTA. Retrieved 19 October 2025. The link contains 17 audio files of the adaptation.
  10. ^ "Compañía Titular de Teatro presenta Las muertas". Universo. Universidad Veracruzana. 31 August 2015.
  11. ^ "Las muertas: Festival de Teatro Nuevo León". México es Cultura. Retrieved 18 October 2025.
  12. ^ Bautista, Virginia (24 October 2020). "Las muertas, en Guanajuato; un tema vigente y urgente". Excélsior.
  13. ^ "Se estrena este fin de semana Las muertas, de Jorge Ibargüengoitia". Gobierno de Guanajuato. 20 October 2020.
  14. ^ Marines, Mauro (14 September 2022). "Las muertas: Un reflejo satírico pero real de la violencia contra la mujer". Vanguardia.
  15. ^ Zermeño Rivas, Roxana Ivette (2014). "Poder y sometimiento en Las muertas de Jorge Ibargüengoitia". Universidad Veracruzana: Xalapa, Ver. p. 19.
  16. ^ Lámbarry, Alejandro (2019). "El caso criminal de las Poquianchis: crítica sociocultural en la novela de Jorge Ibargüengoitia y en la película de Felipe Cazals". Revista Filha. 14 (20). Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas: Zacatecas, Zac. doi:10.60685/filha.v14i20.2390.
  17. ^ "Las Poquianchis DVD cover". Amazon México. Retrieved 19 October 2025. zoom
  • ISBN 9682702917 (Joaquín Mortiz)
  • ISBN 0701126566 (Chatto & Windus)
  • ISBN 9780380816125 (Avon Books)
  • ISBN 9781509870172 (Picador Classics)
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