December 14, 2004
Revolutionary Collaboration
Subcommander Marcos, the leader of the Zapatista movement in Southern Mexico, is co-authoring a detective novel with best-selling crime writer Pablo Ignacio Taibo. NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro has the scoop. And the NY Times has a piece about it as well.
The first six chapters of the book, titled "Awkward Deaths," are to be a sort of Ping-Pong game, Mr. Taibo said. Marcos is to write chapters one, three and five, introducing his detective, Elías Contreras. Mr. Taibo would write chapters two, four and six, using the protagonists in his previous books, Detective Héctor Belascoarán Shayne. In the seventh chapter, the two detectives must meet at the Revolution Monument in Mexico City, where Pancho Villa and Lázaro Cárdenas are buried.Other collaborations currently being worked on: A romance novel co-written by Marwan Barghouti and Amos Oz, a horror novel penned by Manuel Marulanda and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and, lastly, a memoir co-authored by Viktor Yushchenko and Viktor Yanukovych.Neither collaborator knows how the book will end, or how long it will be, Mr. Taibo said. Marcos has chosen to tell the story from a future perspective, with his investigator looking back at events. Mr. Taibo's narrative will stick to the present.
La Jornada, a left-wing newspaper, has agreed to publish the chapters serially. The first effort by the masked-guerrilla-turned-novelist appeared on Dec. 5. The second chapter was published Sunday.
posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM
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