Once@9:53am: Terror en Buenos Aires (Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination)

Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination

by Ilan Stavans, Marcelo Brodsky (Photographer)

At 9:53 on the morning of July 18, 1994, a suicide bomber drove a Renault Trafic van loaded with explosives into the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina, a Jewish community center in the bustling commercial neighborhood of Once, Buenos Aires. The explosion left eighty-five people dead and over three hundred wounded. Originally published amid widespread controversy, Once@9:53am: Terror en Buenos Aires imagines the two hours before the attack through the popular format of the fotonovela.

Part documentary, part fiction, this vivid retelling of Argentina's deadliest bombing depicts a vibrant, complex urban community in the hours before its identity was forever changed. This expanded English edition includes a new essay by Ilan Stavans detailing the aftermath of the attack and the faulty investigations that have yet to yield any arrests or reach resolution.

A unique and powerful visual experience, Once@9:53am is both a commemoration of an atrocity that shifted Latin American Jewish identity in innumerable ways and an ingenious use of a popular format to explore the dangerous intersection of politics and religion in Latin America.

Genres: Fiction, Graphic Novels

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. An award-winning writer and public television host, his books include Growing Up Latino and Spanglish. A native of Mexico City, he lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Erika Dreifus]

As the record here will show, I've intended to read this book for a long time. Maybe it's fate that led me to obtain a copy, and read it, this week of the 25th anniversary of the event at its heart. Beyond providing an unusual lens into the terrorist attack that occurred at 9:53 am on July 19, 1994, in Buenos Aires, the book provides at its conclusion an important, informative narrative of Latin American/Argentinian Jewish history.

[Hannah]

This was really amazing to see, especially since I got to see it as an exhibit of the originals, on the wall, at the Yiddish Book Center. A really fascinating project and a great product about an important topic.