Abstract
Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s short story “The Mystery of Survival” in The Mystery of Survival and Other Stories tells the story of a ten-year-old girl who is taken to live with Lucía, a cousin of her mother’s, in the colonia La Gran María in Ciudad Juárez. Abused by her stepfather, the protagonist is taken by her mother on this trip. The story is told from the point of view of the protagonist, which forces the reader to approach the text through the naive filter of the protagonist’s innocence. What is clear is that both mother and daughter are escaping from an abusive male figure, and they are in search of a better life.
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© 2003 Alvina Quintana
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Morillas-Sánchez, R. (2003). Alicia Gaspar de Alba, “The Mystery of Survival”. In: Quintana, A.E. (eds) Reading U.S. Latina Writers. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982254_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982254_12
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