... what is true, in a lawful sense, is curled and uncurled in this text, making it one of the more incisive intersectional feminist analyses of myth and murder ... this intimate perspective expresses her own dissatisfaction as she undertakes the momentous journey to recover hazy memories and unpack a fraught history ... When the law fails to provide a full spectrum of answers, Trabucco Zerán seeks out Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Sara Ahmed, Judith Butler, and many others. She looks at the possibilities of womanhood from law and literature alike, and Alfaro’s history is pieced together sensitively, revealing how her employers restricted and demeaned her ... translated by the exceptionally talented Sophie Hughes ... Through her spectacular translation, the reader experiences the text’s shapeshifting nature, being pulled into the dazzling vulnerability of the diary entries then taken back to the disciplined and necessary task of understanding women behind and beyond the sensationalist portrayal of their acts ... Weaving together multiple literary styles and a wide range of voices, When Women Kill constantly remolds and blends genres, culminating in an irresistibly compelling read.
Trabucco Zerán, well translated by Sophie Hughes, is a moving, imaginative writer ... strives to put its readers in its subjects' minds, but not in the sensationalistic manner of books like Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, which inhabits a sociopathic protagonist's thoughts. Instead, it applies a thoughtful feminist lens to stories as painful as they are gory ... This mix of emotions is one that Trabucco Zerán manages expertly, and one that will speak to any reader seeking a serious consideration of female violence ... an ethical approach to true crime — still rare, like translated nonfiction, but hopefully both will become more common every year.
A thoughtful interdisciplinary study on the relationship between criminal law, gender, and femininity ... the homicidas emerge from this investigation as actual, sentient human beings. Trabucco Zerán acknowledges her subjects’ capacity to destruct and wound and deceive on their own volition, recognizing their agency even as she grounds their violence within the context of their sociopolitical circumstances. As a result of her empathic analysis, the stories in this book cease their role as cautionary tales levelled at nonconformist women, and instead reveal themselves as proof of Chile’s narrow conceptions of womanhood and femininity. Riveting and unapologetic, Las homicidas underscores the need for a more equitable society, a world that does not seek to repress the possibilities of what women can do and say and be.
