Inspired by a walrus-ivory Story Knife from the Arctic region, Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza creates a multi-faceted narration that asks: what is remembered? How? For whom?
The ephemeral strokes of a Story Knife were traditionally drawn by young Yup´ik girls into soil or snow to repeat old tales that would then fade away. Rivera Garza connects this empowering ancient Indigenous practice to the violentometro, a contemporary tool designed in Mexico to measure instances of intimate partner violence. The story of violence against women constantly disappears even as it is continuously told, re-told. Might a Story Knife play a role in reversing such erasure?
Cristina Rivera Garza (born 1964 in Matamoros, Mexico) is a writer, translator and critic. A leading figure in contemporary Spanish-language literature, she is Hugh Rot and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Chair and founder of the PhD Program in Creative Writing in Spanish at the University of Houston, Department of Hispanic Studies.
