Death and love sit at the core of storytelling, two forces that illuminate the human condition. The enduring question of what lies beyond the gates of perilous existence invites readers to confront the unknown. Life and death stretch into each other, and people search for meaning within this paradox. In this sense, literature acts as a compass, guiding us toward insights about mortality, disappearance, and the fragile line between being and nothingness. The uncertainty of whether someone is alive or gone remains a persistent backdrop, shaping every page.
absence and presence
Published by Candaya, Our Lacks by Eduardo Ruiz Sosa draws on the influence of Rodrigo’s lore while maintaining a distinctly personal voice. Ruiz Sosa leads readers into the landscape of disappearances in northern Mexico with fragmentary, poignant prose that feels both intimate and expansive. This is a work of magnitude in what it reveals and how it is told. The author takes a risk in approaching the story, because the subject is heavy, yet the method of narration feels precise and meticulous, like a jeweler shaping a difficult gem. When a writer begins a story, the path is never fully known. Even if a reader doubts it, the story itself seeks its voice, choosing a cadence and mood, and each writer follows their own track.
Ruiz Sosa locates the key to unfolding a complex narrative within the voices of the disappeared, who appear as if gathered for a ritual of exorcism. The dead speak through the text as if an automatic script conjures memories of absence. The author records what happened to the disappeared as though the events were written in a private notebook. Sometimes release, release, and shaping of pain are necessary to understand and heal; this is the foundation of the work, the transformation of pain into a pathway toward comprehension and eventual closure, where the hope remains that the lost might be found in some form.
The book emerges as a testament to Eduardo Ruiz Sosa’s status as one of the most dissolving narrators in contemporary Latin American literature. The blend of voices and a deconstructed structure give the work a space that nods to the traditions of Rulfo and Perec while resonating with the sensibility of Gabriel García Márquez. Ruiz Sosa infuses the prose with intensity and lyricism, weaving styles, sounds, and tenses into a narrative that remains unflinching and morally charged. The starkness of the material does not leave readers indifferent; it confronts them with the pain of a country and a people who have endured oppression and upheaval over generations. The text evokes the grim aphorism that Hobbes captured with his phrase homo homini lupus—man is wolf to man— reminding readers that vulnerability often lies at the heart of collective endurance.