Rebecca Biron breaks new ground in this study of masculinity, violence, and the strategic construction of collective political identities in twentieth-century Latin American fiction. By engaging current sociological, psychoanalytic, and feminist theories, Murder and Masculinity analyses the clich_ of proving virility through violence against women. Biron develops her argument through close readings of five works: Jorge Luis Borges's ‘La intrusa', Armonía Somer's ‘El despojo', Clarice Lispector's A Maga no Escuro, Manuel Puig's The Buenos Aires Affair, and Reinaldo Arenas's El asalto. Biron argues that the five narratives addressed in this book show that healed masculinities are essential to the achievement of cultural identity and political autonomy in Latin America.