Quizlit’s Book of the Month September 2026 is the powerful and poetic Medea Sang Me a Corrido by Dahlia de la Cerda. A punk revival of Medea as a Mexican anti-angel of birth and death.
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Book of the Month September 2026
Medea Sang Me a Corrido by Dahlia de la Cerda
A punk revival of Medea as a Mexican anti-angel of birth and death, from the International Booker Prize-nominated author of Reservoir Bitches.
In Northern Mexico, Paulina, Perla, Antonia, Reina, and Jordan are striving to survive the barrio, hustling on the edge of a cartel-run economy, nursing the wounds made normal in a world that eats its own. Hovering over their trials is a spirit with gothic flair, dressed in black and crowned with braids: Medea, a mythic mother of the Chihuahuan desert, ancient as the Aztecs but never too old to be petty.
From aiding a trophy girlfriend’s abortion, to accompanying a mother in her search for her lost child in the desert, to embracing those taken too soon in the narco’s brutal proxy wars, Medea fights for justice for her chosen mortals — her divine wrath the only power that could rival the corrupt, violent web spun by the cartel, the government, and the military. Dahlia de la Cerda’s magnetic prose draws readers right into the heart of that web and links all our fates to the missions of Medea, equal parts midwife and gravedigger, a femme fatale god in a femicidal world.
‘De la Cerda creates a sense of pace and peril in a way that resembles Bolano’s The Savage Detectives more than it does 2666. It’s largely composed in a vernacular that obeys rules of spoken rather than written language, and thrums with immediacy as it engages with and subverts patriarchal culture. Anyone interested in Mexican literature should be drawn to this one.’ FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK – Cameron Woodhead, The Sydney Morning Herald
Only a novel this inventive and insane could help me understand the complexities of modern Mexico and capture every horror of womanhood. Propulsive and poetic. As sick as it is sexy and as feral as it is tender. I couldn’t put it down.” —Melissa Lozada-Oliva, author of Candelaria“One of the most promising voices in recent Mexican literature.” —Latin American Literature Today
Also by Dahlia de la Cerda
A debut linked story collection of gritty, streetwise, and wickedly funny fiction from Mexico.
Life’s a bitch. That’s why you gotta rattle her cage, even if she’s foaming at the mouth.
In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life as they fight, sew, skirt, cheat, cry, and lie their way through their tangled circumstances. From the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss to the victim of transfemicide, from a houseful of spinster seamstresses to a socialite who supports her politician husband by faking Indigenous roots, these women spit on their own reduction and invent new ways to survive, telling their stories in bold, unapologetic voices. At once social critique and black comedy, Reservoir Bitches is a raucous debut from one of Mexico’s most thrilling new writers.
If you enjoyed Book of the Month September 2026, check out 10 Must Read Books for Women in Translation Month