4. Femicide and Snuff

Chapter 4 examines “snuff literature” (Paul Virilio) or novels that fantasize killing women and recording their deaths photographically or on video. It contrasts Roberto Bolaño’s monumental 2666 (2004) with novels that exploit the topics of femicide and snuff for cruel pleasure: Federico Andahazi’s El libro de los placeres prohibidos (2012), Andreu Martín’s Por amor al arte (1982), Rolo Diez’s Mato y voy (1992), Javier Valdés’s Asesino en serio (2000) and Juan Hernández Luna’s Cadáver de ciudad (2006). A coda addresses the treatment of snuff in novels inspired by the same Ciudad Juárez femicides cataloged in 2666. These include feminist texts by Maude Tabachnik and Alicia Gaspar de Alba, as well as sensational, misogynistic and necropornographic ones by Gonzalo Martré, Gregorio León and Ricardo Clark.