The Woman on the Windowsill: A Tale of Mystery in Several Parts

by Sylvia Sellers-García Narrated by Kyla García

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

…the trouble with historical crimes is that the ingenuity of the perpetrators can overshadow the humanity of their victims. In that context, The Woman on the Windowsill: A Tale of Mystery in Several Parts, by Sylvia Sellers-Garcia, serves as a grim but effective corrective.

From the Publisher

The book deftly ranges across Italian iconography, Maya cosmovision, casta paintings, Enlightenment urbanism, conceptions of death, masculinity, gender violence, crime and punishment, and the growth of the state.”—Laura Matthew, Hispanic American Historical Review

“With transparency and integrity, this tour-de-force exhibits the historian’s craft even as it sometimes blurs lines between nonfiction and fiction. . . . Engaging prose, astute analysis. . . . Remarkable.”—David Carey Jr., Journal of Modern History

Received honorable mention for the Louis Gottschalk Prize

Winner of the James P. Hanlan Book Prize, sponsored by the New England Historical Association

Winner of the Bolton-Johnson Prize, sponsored by the Conference on Latin American History

“The Woman on the Windowsill is that rare history book that will keep you on the edge of your seat. At the book’s core is the paired drama of an unfolding crime with the historian’s measured discovery of a puzzling and at times inscrutable past.”— Kris Lane, Tulane University

“An exquisite book. It is at once scholarly and popular, learned and accessible, challenging and inviting. The beauty is in the understated elegance, the pacing, and the care with which Sellers-Garciá approaches the pleasures and the problems of the archive.”— Raymond Craib, Cornell University

“Every historian dreams about finding a spellbinding old case or an irresistible cache of documents. Sellers-García has found such a case and used it to give us a grand tour of colonial Guatemala City, showing us its cobblestone streets, nearby ravines, hospitals and medical procedures, families from various walks of life, city leaders, victims, and villains.”—Andrés Reséndez, author of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177948119
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	02/18/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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