FEMINICIDIO MEXICANO EN LA CASA DE LA FUERZA (2009) DE ANGÉLICA LIDDELL. UNA APUESTA POR LA HIBRIDACIÓN EN TORNO A LA ANGUSTIA UNIVERSAL

The House of Strength (La casa de la fuerza) addresses the murders and rapes of women and girls in Ciudad Juárez, a femicide "perpetuated through a culture of impunity surrounding the subordinate position of women," in the author's words, and even sanctioned by the state Penal Code, "which considers that if there is provocation on the part of the woman in the crime of rape, the sentence is mitigated." But beyond this terrible vision of humiliation and submission of Mexican women, Liddell, in a masterful exercise of cultural syncretism, goes beyond these murders to address Kantian "radical evil" and the existential angst of the human being in universal terms that transcend gender and nationality—from the perspective of both the executioner and the victim, both condemned to the absence of love: "To love so much only to die so alone, to love so much only to die so alone, to love so much only to die so alone...!"