Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice

On October 18, 2019, Cristina Rivera Garza traveled from her home in Texas to Mexico City in search of a long-neglected criminal case. “My name is Cristina Rivera Garza,” she wrote to the attorney general, “and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera Garza, who was murdered on July 16, 1990.” Twenty-nine years, three months, and two days had passed since Liliana was killed by an abusive ex-boyfriend. Fueled by the global feminist movement and outraged by the epidemic of femicide and intimate partner violence, Cristina embarked on a quest for justice. Liliana’s Invincible Summer is the story—and the result—of that pursuit.

In luminous, poetic prose, Rivera Garza brings Liliana to life: a spirited, hopeful young woman navigating a world increasingly shaped by gendered violence. From her early romance with a charming but volatile man to the radiant, liberating summer of 1990 when she loved, explored, and lived more fully than ever, Liliana’s story is at once singular and universally resonant.

Drawing on her work as a scholar, novelist, and poet, Rivera Garza meticulously curated letters, police reports, school notebooks, and interviews with those who knew Liliana to reconstruct her sister’s life. The result is a genre-defying memoir that confronts grief, traces the enduring impact of violence, and illuminates the courage required to fight for justice and remembrance.

Pulitzer Prize winner