Graphic novelist in Amnesty book on Mexican murders

By Martin Roberts

GIJON, Spain (Reuters Life!) - U.S. graphic novelist and artist Phoebe Gloeckner is a contributor to a book funded by human rights group Amnesty International about the largely unsolved murders and disappearances of hundreds of women near the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez.

Due out later this year, "I live here" also tells the stories of women and child refugees from places including Chechnya and Africa.

Gloeckner originally graduated and worked as a medical illustrator but always drew comic strips and began publishing graphic novels in 1998.

On the sidelines of the "Semana Negra" literary festival in Spain, she spoke to Reuters about future plans, censorship and the conflict between genre and mainstream fiction.

Q. Can you tell us about your next book?

A. It's about a girl called Elena Chavez Caldera, who disappeared in 2000, aged 15, on her way home from work. I wanted to write about her because there is almost nothing left of her.

Her parents had just one photograph, which they gave to the police, so now all they have is a wrinkled photocopy of the "missing" poster.

Q. The case is still unsolved?