The Woman on the Windowsill, Sylvia SellersGarcia
The Woman on the Windowsill, Sylvia SellersGarcia
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The Woman on the Windowsill
A Tale of Mystery in Several Parts

Author: Sylvia Sellers-Garcia

Narrator: Kyla García

Unabridged: 7 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/18/2020

Synopsis

On the morning of July 1, 1800, a surveyor and mapmaker named Cayetano Díaz opened the window of his study in Guatemala City to find a horrific sight: a pair of severed breasts. Offering a meticulously researched and evocative account of the quest to find the perpetrator and understand the motives behind such a brutal act, this volume pinpoints the sensational crime as a watershed moment in Guatemalan history that radically changed the nature of justice and the established social order.

Sylvia Sellers-García reveals how this bizarre and macabre event spurred an increased attention to crime that resulted in more forceful policing and reflected important policy decisions not only in Guatemala but across Latin America. This fascinating book is both an engaging criminal case study and a broader consideration of the forces shaping Guatemala City at the brink of the modern era.

About Sylvia Sellers-Garcia

Sylvia Sellers-Garcia is associate professor of history at Boston College. Her previous books include Distance and Documents at the Spanish Empire's Periphery and When the Ground Turns in Its Sleep. She lives in Beverly, Massachusetts.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Adrienne on January 03, 2020

I really loved reading The Woman on the Windowsill: A Tale of Mystery in Several Parts. It reads as an account of life in Guatemala in the 1800s. I appreciate the author's in-depth analysis of crime, social thought and class/gender divisions within the culture at the time. As I was reading, I found......more

Goodreads review by Peter on May 28, 2020

The Woman on the Windowsill (2020) by Sylvia Sellers-Garcia is subtitled "A Mystery in Many Parts." It is a true crime "thriller" taken from the historical records in Guatemala in 1800. Sellers-Garcia, a Latin America scholar at Boston College, has researched the incidences of crimes of violence in......more

Goodreads review by Kurt on April 16, 2022

Back on the first day of my graduate school class this semester in January, The class was asked to share what their favorite books they had read in other classes were. No less than three different people in the class listed this book. Following my personal 3 separate recommendation rule I jumped on......more

Goodreads review by Mandy on June 06, 2020

Who would have thought that a book about life in Guatemala in the 1800s would prove so fascinating? The amount of research that has gone into this original and unexpectedly compelling non-fiction work of detection is quite astounding. It all starts with the bizarre and gruesome discovery of a pair o......more

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