Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Words Without Borders Mexican Drug War issue is out!

The Mexican Drug War issue of Words Without Borders is finally out and it's amazing. Please go take a look at it if you can make the time.  As the blurb below notes, this is a subject that really needs attention:  

"What is it like to grow up in a country where the only safe place you can gather with friends is in your own home? How do you raise a family when going to the supermarket is fraught with the danger of being kidnapped?  This is the situation in Mexico, where the drug wars have transformed the country into a living hell. Guest editor Carmen Boullosa has assembled compelling essays, interviews, fiction, and poetry from Mexican writers on the impact of this bloody conflict. In their eyewitness reports, Luis Felipe Fabre, Rafael Perez Gay, Yuri Herrera, Rafael Lemus, Fabrizio Mejia Madrid, Hector de Mauleon, Magali Tercero, Jorge Volpi, and Juan Villoro document the crisis and demand the world's attention." 

When my husband and I were last in Acapulco, we were standing in a spot where only a week later there was a massacre. When I heard about it, I was literally shaking -- thinking I had just been there.   I recently read about a group of cruise ship passengers who were robbed last week at gunpoint in Puerto Vallarta on a cruiseline-sponsored shore excursion.  This kind of crime is everywhere, and although I love Puerto Vallarta and have spent a great deal of time there and in other areas,  I don't think Mexico is a safe place any more. I'm a tourist, and have the option to not travel there if I so choose, but can you imagine having to live there through all of this?  And then, of course,  there is the problem of these conflicts continuing along the US border with Mexico -- and that's a whole 'nother story in and of itself.

If you care at all, this is an issue not to be missed.  Words Without Borders is one of my favorite websites anyway, but this is a special issue that the powers that be worked very hard to get published.  Please give it a look. Innocent people are caught up in these conflicts.

1 comment:

  1. You're welcome. In speaking to many people about the issues presented in this issue, I've discovered that not many people really care about what's happening in Mexico since a) it's Mexico and b) it doesn't have any relevance to their lives. A pity, really.

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