The Mystery Behind the Disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa Students: What’s left?

Abstract

This book review essay will provide an in-depth analysis about the mystery behind Mexico’s 43 disappeared students of Ayotzinapa. There are two tightly defined themes throughout the four books: forced disappearances and political violence in Mexico. Such themes bring to light some of the most consequential questions that the books help uncover. Where have the students vanished and who is responsible? Firstly, this review essay will assess the books’ approach, and how each writing avails to capture the truth through interviews, testimonies and personal narratives, investigative journalism, and even by way of an illustrated non-fiction and graphic form. Although each book has a different form, they all efficaciously demonstrate and prove that, the Mexican government was responsible for the forced disappearances of the 43 normalistas from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa. The books expose a world of government corruption, political violence, murders and impunity, while revealing the authentic culprits connected to the killing of six and forceful disappearance of 43 students. Secondly, this diversified range of books, withal point out that, the disappeared students’ families were not going to allow the government to simply vanish their loved ones. The parents of the 43 students and survivors of the attack, mobilized in protests, met with government officials, and gave interviews to journalists. However, not one of the parents’ efforts sufficed to propound the complex and perturbing reality they were experiencing. Almost six years after, the families are still searching for the 43 students, who mysteriously vanished into the dark night. The forced disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students continues to be an unsolved crime.