Requiem for desaparecidos, migrants and the assaulted women in the borderlands: Across A Hundred Mountains by Reyna Grande and The Guardians by Ana Castillo

This article examines how the novels Across a Hundred Mountains (2006) by Reyna Grande and The Guardians (2007) by Ana Castillo participate in a hemispheric conversation about migration, disappearance, and gender violence. The article considers these two works of fiction within the context of the vanishing of immigrants in the borderlands and the subsequent search and mourning endured by the relatives. The study invokes the concept of sovereignty to establish a link between the disappearances at the border and authoritarian regimes, which is visible through Giorgio Agamben’s paradigm of homo sacer, an individual stripped of legal status and exposed to death. Further, the article analyzes how these novels focus on the precarious living conditions, violence, and oppressive circumstances of families left behind.