A vampire in Ciudad Juárez. Fantasy or gore capitalism? Analysis of The crows by César Silva Márquez

Abstract

Los cuervos (2006) by Mexican César Silva Márquez, proposes a perplexing plot: the presence of a vampire named Pedro torturing and killing women. The scene is Ciudad Juárez, internationally known for a long chain of murders against women that until now have not been clarified by the authorities. The novel seems to suggest a supernatural explanation for crimes through the figure of the vampire. The coexistence between the real and the fantastic that puts the novel in the scene makes possible a series of very complex and suggestive reflections: what is the functionality of the vampire as a symbol to represent the violence in the well-known Mexican border city? What are the social dynamics and cultural elements of Ciudad Juárez that make possible the verisimilitude of the vampire within the fiction? This paper is analyses the curious and yet effective marriage between the real Mexican city and the fictional figure of the vampire.

Keywords: Vampire, Borderline, Ciudad Juárez, César Silva Márquez