Abecedario de Jurez

Southwest Book Awards, Border Regional Library Association (BRLA) Uses key words and striking images to explore violence and everyday life in Jurez, Mexico. Jurez, Mexico, is known for violence. The femicides of the 1990s, and the cartel mayhem that followed, made it one of the world's most dangerous cities. Along with the violence came a new lexicon that traveled from person to person, across rivers and borderswherever it was needed to explain the horrors taking place. From personal interviews, media accounts, and conversations on the street, Julin Cardona and Alice Leora Briggs have collected the words and slang that make up the brutal language of Jurez, creating a glossary that serves as a linguistic portrait of the city and its violence. Organized alphabetically, the entries consist of Spanish and Spanglish, accompanied by short English definitions. Some also feature a longer narrative drawn from interviewsstories that put the terms in context and provide a personal counterpoint to media reports of the same events. Letters, and many of the entries, are supplemented with Briggss evocative illustrations, which are reminiscent of Hans Holbeins famous Alphabet of Death. Together, the words, drawings, and descriptions in ABCedario de Jurez both document and interpret the everyday violence of this vital border city.