No Place to Bury the Dead

A Novel

By: Karina Sainz Borgo

Narrated by: Maria McCann

“[A] rich and lyrical tale of desperation and redemption . . . Throughout, Sainz Borgo applies stark poetry to the terrifying setting, where 'moans and cries attributed to ghosts sometimes masked executions and beatings.' It’s a stunner.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[A] deeply felt meditation on migration, mourning and the simultaneous entanglement and estrangement of the living and the dead” —Los Angeles Times

Winner of the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize, a searing novel of loss and resilience that illuminates the often-overlooked human dimension of the migrant crisis, re-imagining the border as a dreamlike purgatory bridging life and death.

In an unnamed Latin American country, a mysterious plague quickly spreads, erasing the memory of anyone infected. Angustias Romero flees with her family, but their flight is tragically cut short when she loses both her children. Consumed by grief, she finds herself within the hallucinatory expanse of Mezquite––a town corrupted by greed and populated by storytellers, refugees, and violent, predatory gangs.

Here, Angustias is finally able to lay her children to rest at the Third Country, a cemetery run by the larger-than-life Visitación Salazar and a refuge beyond suffering and fear. While Visitación remains defiant in her mission to care for the dead, the cemetery she oversees is the focal point of a bitter land dispute with Alcides Abundio, the most feared landowner of the border. Caught in this power struggle, Angustias and Visitación–friends and sometimes rivals– stand their ground on a frontier where the law is dictated by violence; a surreal territory whose very nature blurs the boundaries between life and death.

Exploring what we are capable of and how far we will go when we have nothing to lose, No Place to Bury the Dead confirms Karina Sainz Borgo’s importance amongst the voices of modern Latin American literature, merging thriller, western, and classic tragedy in an unforgettable and urgent novel that won the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize.

Translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer

best Writer Out There

Karina is an incredible writer, paiting images you will remember forever. audible did a great job but make sure you get the book as well.

sad tale

The story follows Angustias, a mother fleeing her hometown with her husband and two young kids. Both kids die and the story focuses on them trying to find a place to bury them.
On this journey they face theft, struggle for food, stolen documents, and sadness along with many other refugees.
I thought the characters didn’t have a lot of depth. It was hard to relate to them. I like what the author was trying to convey.

Extremely Slow

This dragged on so so soooo much. Unfortunately it had me bored out of my mind for a good 80% of the time. This is a book where almost nothing happens for the vast majority of the novel and while I did enjoy some of the characters, a lot of them felt unimportant. I wish there could have been more about the plague, but that felt like it was completely on the back burner. I wanted to like this, I tried really hard. It just wasn't for me.