Early in the twentieth century, amid the myths of progress and modernity that underpinned Mexico's ruling party, some three hundred Chinese immigrants - close to half of the Cantonese residents of the newly founded city of Torreon - were massacred over the course of three days. It is considered the largest slaughter of Chinese people in the history of the Americas, an attempted extermination that was followed by denial or empty statements of regret. The massacre reverberated briefly before fading from collective memory. More than a century later, the facts continue to be elusive, mistaken, and repressed. "And what do you know about the Chinese people who were killed here?" Julian Herbert asks anyone who will listen. An exorcism of persistent and discomfiting ghosts, The House of the Pain of Others attempts a reckoning with the 1911 massacre. Blending reportage, personal reflection, essay, and academic treatise, Herbert talks to taxi drivers and historians, travels to the scene of the crime, and digs deep into archives that contain conflicting testimony. Looping, digressive, and cinematic, this cronica vividly portrays the historical context as well as the lives of the perpetrators and victims of the "small genocide." It is a distinctly twenty-first-century sort of Western, a tremendous literary performance that extends and enlarges the accomplishments of a significant international writer.

A brilliant work of historical excavation with profound echoes in an age redolent with violence and xenophobia

About the Author
Julian Herbert was born in Acapulco in 1971. He is a writer, musician, and teacher, and is the author of Tomb Song as well as several volumes of poetry and two story collections. He lives in Saltillo, Mexico. Christina MacSweeney was awarded the 2016 Valle Inclan Translation Prize for her translations of Valeria Luiselli's The Story of My Teeth. Her translation of Daniel Saldana Paris's novel Among Strange Victims was shortlisted for the 2017 Best Translated Book Award.


Book Information
ISBN 9781555978372
Author Julian Herbert
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint Graywolf Press,U.S.
Publisher Graywolf Press,U.S.
Weight(grams) 392g
Dimensions(mm) 210mm * 141mm * 19mm