Red Stones
A Graphic Account of the Salvadoran Civil War
A girl and her family attempt to survive a brutal conflict in Ernesto Saade’s harrowing graphic novel Red Stones.
Miriam was twelve when she survived the 1981 Red Stones Massacre. She had traveled with others to a protest; many demonstrators were shot. Boys were recruited as soldiers by force, and men, seen as potential enemies, were hunted by the government.
When a large force headed to Miriam’s village, the inhabitants evacuated, marching north to Honduras, where they believed they would be safe. Besieged by helicopters and soldiers, they had little food or water. On the third night, Miriam’s pregnant sister Marielos went into labor. In another attack near the Lempa River, more than two hundred people were killed.
To reveal the full experience of the Red Stones Massacre, interviews and eyewitness testimonies are referenced. Miriam’s own compelling narrative is recounted in retrospect, informed by her childhood views. Her descriptions are memorable: facing punishment for risking her life, Miriam notes that her exhausted, starving mother was “so weak that the spankings didn’t hurt.” The artwork is remarkable and haunting, as with a sequence of panels in which Miriam and her friend Cesar are horrified to step on squishy corpses along their path.
The gripping graphic memoir Red Stones recalls a fight for survival during El Salvador’s civil war.
Reviewed by
Peter Dabbene
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