A Silent Fury: The El Bordo Mine Fire
​Yuri Herrera

​In the early morning of March 10, 1920 in the Mexican city of Pachuca, a fire tore through the subterranean shafts of the massive El Bordo mine. Four hundred men were below ground when the fire was discovered, and the evacuation was slow, chaotic, and incomplete. J.F. Berry, the American superintendent of the mine, ordered that operations cease, and that the exits be sealed shut. But many men were still unaccounted for, and when inspectors opened up the mine six days later they found eighty-seven bodies and seven survivors. 
 
Yuri Herrera, a native of Pachuca, reconstructs the fire and its aftermath from fragmentary evidence and conflicting accounts presented in newspapers and scant worker testimonials. And the picture that emerges is of a corrupt mine run by men with no regard for human life, shielded by a government more interested in protecting foreign business interests than its own citizens. A SIlent Fury is reportage, but also a testimonial to the lives lost and restitution for the workers and their families denied both justice and answers. 
 
Buried beneath a century of lies and coverups, this slim book cannot uncover the answers to vital questions—who is responsible for the fire and why—but it is a chilling depiction of how the powerful are protected, and how ordinary citizens bear the weight of this protection. The mine itself becomes a metaphor for hidden truths. “Silence is not the absence of history,” Herrera states, “it’s a history hidden beneath shapes that must be deciphered.” In deciphering this history, Herrera shines light on the past as well as the present.

Yuri Herrera is a Mexican author, political scientist, and professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Tulane University in New Orleans. His first novel to appear in English, Signs Preceding the End of the World, was published to great critical acclaim in 2015 and included in many Best-of-Year lists, including The Guardian‘s Best Fiction and NBC News’s Ten Great Latino Books, going on to win the 2016 Best Translated Book Award.

A SIlent Fury: The El Bordo Mine Fire is publication by And Other Stories. Click here to purchase.
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Reviewed by
Elizabeth Gonzalez James​
​7/3/2020

Elizabeth Gonzalez James’ stories and essays have appeared in The Idaho Review, Ploughshares Blog, The Rumpus, and elsewhere, and have received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. Her debut novel, MONA AT SEA, was a finalist in the 2019 SFWP Literary Awards judged by Carmen Maria Machado, and is forthcoming, July 2021, from Santa Fe Writers Project. Originally from South Texas, Elizabeth now lives with her family in Oakland, California.

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