Confronting Gender Violence Through Literature

Mon, March 9, 2026 6:00 PM at Union Ballroom

Acclaimed Mexican author Cristina Rivera Garza will visit MSU March 9-10, 2026 for a reading and discussions of her Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Liliana’s Invincible Summer.

During January-February, Dr. Alejandra Marquez and Ana Ponce from Romance and Classical Studies will lead virtual book clubs - one for faculty/staff, one for students - to read Liliana's Invincible Summer together, creating space for conversation, reflection, and community. 

About the book: On July 16, 1990, Liliana Rivera Garza was murdered by her abusive ex-boyfriend, a devastating loss that shed light on gender violence and impunity in Mexico. Through deeply moving prose, her sister, Cristina Rivera Garza, reconstructs Liliana’s life beyond the crime itself, painting her childhood, her dreams, her loves, and the weeks leading up to that final summer when Liliana lived with newfound freedom and hope. Returning to Mexico decades later, Rivera Garza pieces together letters, notebooks, police records, and personal archives to confront both her family’s unresolved grief and a justice system that failed them, transforming private mourning into an act of memory, testimony, and resistance.