Prayers for the Stolen

Prayers for the Stolen is a 2012 coming-of-age novel by American Mexican author Jennifer Clement, who resides in Mexico City. Clement formerly served as president of PEN Mexico, part of a worldwide association of playwrights, poets, editors, essayists, and novelists that advocates for freedom of expression. Clement took up this role at a time when Mexico was among the most dangerous countries in the world in which to work in journalism.

The narrator and protagonist of Prayers for the Stolen, Ladydi Martinez, tells the story of her life growing up in the mountain village of Chulavista, Mexico. This area is dominated by drug traffickers who also steal girls for sex trafficking. Although the girls try to make themselves ugly to avoid attention, one of Ladydi's friends is still kidnapped. Ladydi manages to survive and leaves her village to work as a nanny in Acapulco. On the drive to Acapulco, she witnesses her friend's brother, Mike, murdering a drug dealer and his daughter. Ladydi ends up living in an abandoned house in Acapulco because her employers have also been murdered, and she is later accused of Mike's crime, arrested, and sent to a prison in Mexico City.