To disappear meant to die. In those days, in that place, almost everyone knew. With sentences that cut clean to the bone and wrench the heart, Patricia Grace King invites us to comprehend the traumas of wartime and the legacies they create. As we approach the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of the 1996 Guatemalan Peace Accords, we find ourselves still urgently needing to understand the wars the United States has fomented abroad.
Offering readers a direct window into the Guatemalan internal armed conflict (1960–1996), the stories in Those Who Vanish wrestle with the question of individual responsibility in the face of global forces, portraying with sensitivity American citizens in Guatemala during the conflict and the later experience of Guatemalan expats in America. We see how trauma ripples: through generations of a family, across oceans and borders, and even into the very fabric of our relationships.
Upon finding human teeth on their doorstep, two peace workers bury them out of respect for the dead. A tomboyish blonde American who grew up poor in rural Maryland must confront fraught issues of class when she begins dating a wealthy Guatemalan man. At a Mennonite sleepaway camp in Kentucky, two missionary kids connect over their shared experiences in Central America—until they don’t, hormones and hard memories bubbling between them. Never once does King shy away from difficult terrain, instead rendering the most awkward and awful of moments with clarity and precision, interrogating choices at every turn. And what were we doing? Why had we come? These are questions worth pondering.
Winner of the 2026 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Those Who Vanish is a collection we can’t afford not to read. Through stories that explore faith, violence, survival, and the resilience of the human heart, King insists we think critically about foreign wars and the roles we might play in them. Likewise, she asks us to consider the personal wars we wage against each other, and our own selves, as we decide who we are and what we’re willing to fight for.
