A History of Violence

An excruciating read. Martínez spares no detail in terms of the horrors perpetrated on the bodies and souls of migrants and their loved ones. His writing, as reviewers have said, is reminiscent of war reporting, evoking deep exhaustion that approaches but stays short of cynicism, retaining a sense of urgency but also the fear and grief that so many efforts to stay the endemic violence and corruption have thus far borne less fruit than so many have hoped. Martínez's writing may be among the most important work to lay bare the degree and depth of this system, with the hope that sunlight may present a disinfectant.