History of Violence

Óscar Martínez writes for ElFaro.net, the first online newspaper in Latin America. His first book, The Beast, was named one of the best books of the year by the Economist and the Financial Times. In 2008, Martínez won the Fernando Benítez National Journalism Prize in Mexico, and in 2009, he was awarded the Human Rights Prize at the José Simeón Cañas Central American University in El Salvador.

Martínez dives into the underworld of his subjects, navigating barrios that police won't enter, spending days and nights with gang members. His methods resemble war reporting and his prose is cinematic . The collection's strength lies in his ability to write the hell out of his material. Like Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family, it skimps on statistics and analysis, instead relying on description alone to create a world that captures the reader and doesn't let her go. One of the stories, 'El Niño Hollywood's Death Foretold,' evokes Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Like the beloved Colombian writer, Martínez pens scenes that are suspenseful, moving, and vivid.