December 05, 2004
Rebel leader to write political novel

In 2001 I rode for three weeks in the back of a pickup truck belonging to the leftist Mexican newspaper La Jornada. We were racing through Mexico in a highspeed motorcade, chasing the comandancia of the Zapatistas on their caravan from the jungles of Chiapas to Mexico City. Then newly elected president Vicente Fox had declared that he would settle the rebel crisis in fifteen minutes. He gave the Zapatistas safe passage on their way to the capital, and they stopped every day along the way to speak to rallies of cheering supporters. It struck me then that we were seeing the mainstreaming of rebellion. Of course, Mexico has had a lot of practice at this - before Fox, the group in power for 70 years without a break was the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

This news item is the latest twist in the story of Subcomandante Marcos, leader of what has been described as the first internet rebellion.

HoustonChronicle.com - Rebel leader to pen a political fiction

"Leftist Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos, who slipped largely out of the public eye three years ago, plans to re-emerge in fiction as the co-author of a police/political novel that will appear in excerpts in a leftist newspaper, his collaborator announced Friday."

It will appear in installments every Sunday in La Jornada. Here's their story, with photos of Marcos and Paco Ignacio Taibo II, his collaborator.

La Jornada - Taibo II y Marcos escriben novela a 20 dedos (Taibo and Marcos write a novel with 20 fingers)

Posted by Dave at December 05, 2004 10:17 PM