Subcomandante Marcos

In this landmark book, Seven Stories Press presents a powerful collection of literary, philosophical, and political writings of the masked Zapatista spokesperson, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. Introduced by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, and illustrated with beautiful black and white photographs, Our Word Is Our Weapon crystallizes "the passion of a rebel, the poetry of a movement, and the literary genius of indigenous Mexico." Marcos first captured world attention on January 1, 1994, when he and an indigenous guerrilla group calling themselves "Zapatistas" revolted against the Mexican government and seized key towns in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas. In the six years that have passed since their uprising, Marcos has altered the course of Mexican politics and emerged an international symbol of grassroots movement-building, rebellion, and democracy. The prolific stream of poetic political writings, tales, and traditional myths that Marcos has penned since January 1, 1994 fill more than four volumes. Our Word Is Our Weapon presents the best of these writings, many of which have never been published before in English. Throughout this remarkable book we hear the uncompromising voice of indigenous communities living in resistance, expressing through manifestos and myths the universal human urge for dignity, democracy, and liberation. It is the voice of a people refusing to be forgotten the voice of Mexico in transition, the voice of a people struggling for democracy by using their word as their only weapon.

Selected Writings

Our Word is Our Weapon

Paco Ignacio Taibo (II)

Marcos (subcomandante.)

The highly anticipated surreal noir collaboration between Mexico's greatest writer and its most feared revolutionary.

(what's Missing is Missing) : a Novel by Four Hands

The Uncomfortable Dead

Subcommandante Marcos

Zapatista Stories

Our Word Is Our Weapon

EZLN

Communiques And Interviews From The Zapatista National Liberation Army

Voice Of Fire

A stylized reissue of the acclaimed, surreal noir collaboration between Mexico's greatest writer and its most courageous revolutionary.

In alternating chapters, enigmatic Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos and crime writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II create an uproarious murder mystery with intersecting storylines. Those chapters written by the famously masked Marcos originate in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, where, amid a hallucinatory blend of different voices, we meet El'as, a Zapatista detective tasked with locating missing people. Taibo's chapters star his Coca-Cola-and-cigarette-consuming series detective H'ctor Belascoar'n Shayne: a PI specialising in cases stranger than reality. The two stories collide absurdly and dramatically in the sprawl of Mexico City. The ugly history of the city's political violence rears its head, and both detectives find themselves in an unlikely dance of death with forces at once criminal, historical, and political.

In this gorgeous collection of allegorical stories, Subcomandante Marcos, idiosyncratic spokesperson of the Zapatistas, has provided "an accidental archive" of a revolutionary group's struggle against neo-liberalism. For 30 years, the Zapatistas have influenced and inspired movements worldwide, showing that another world is possible. They have infused Left politics with a distinct imaginary--and an imaginative, literary or poetic dimension--organizing horizontally, outside and against the state, and with a profound respect for difference as a source of political insight, not division. Marcos's inspiring and sometimes Kafkaesque stories bear witness to how a defense of indigenous traditions can become a lever for the construction of a new anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal world. With commentaries that illuminate their historical, political, and literary contexts and an introduction by the translators, this timeless elegiac volume is perfect for lovers of literature and lovers of revolution.

Zapatista Stories for Dreaming An-Other World

Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska asks: "Can a book explode like a bomb? Can it change minds? Should a government feel threatened? Do books bite and make others rabid?" In this book of art and revolutionary struggle, the answer is resoundingly, "Yes!"

Folktales of the Zapatista Revolution

Questions & Swords

Literary Nonfiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Essays. Politics. Afterword by Gabriela Jauregui. PROFESSIONALS OF HOPE: THE SELECTED WRITINGS OF SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS is an anthology by the prolific and brilliant former spokesperson and strategist for the Zapatistas, who countered the Mexican government's bloody attacks on indigenous people by staging an uprising in the name of "democracy, justice, and liberty" for all. And by "all," Marcos really means everyone, including identities that resist ready-made categories. These poetic letters, speeches, and folktales counter oppression by challenging governments that plunder their own people, and declare the basic desire to bestow dignity upon the indigenous people of Chiapas through grass-roots revolution. By no means exhaustive, this book is meant to introduce readers to a sliver of Marcos's output and provide context for a struggle that still exists in Mexico, and whose existence is mirrored wherever tyranny flourishes. "Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the subway at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains. Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying 'Enough.' He is every minority who is now beginning to speak, and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable--this is Marcos."--Subcomandante Marcos, from Social Justice E- Zine #27

The Selected Writings of Subcomandante Marcos

Professionals of Hope

In this gorgeous collection of allegorical stories, Subcomandante Marcos, idiosyncratic spokesperson of the Zapatistas, has provided “an accidental archive” of a revolutionary group’s struggle against neo-liberalism. For 30 years, the Zapatistas have influenced and inspired movements worldwide, showing that another world is possible. They have infused Left politics with a distinct imaginary—and an imaginative, literary or poetic dimension—organizing horizontally, outside and against the state, and with a profound respect for difference as a source of political insight, not division. Marcos’s inspiring and sometimes Kafkaesque stories bear witness to how a defense of indigenous traditions can become a lever for the construction of a new anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal world. With commentaries that illuminate their historical, political, and literary contexts and an introduction by the translators, this timeless elegiac volume is perfect for lovers of literature and lovers of revolution.

Zapatista Stories for Dreaming An Other World

Christopher Day

Mariana Mora

Memory from Below

Ezln Communiques

El Kilombo Intergalactico

Beyond Resistance uncovers the relevance and importance of the Zapatista's Other Campaign for people living and struggling in the United States.

An Interview With Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

Beyond Resistance: Everything

Paco Ignacio Taibo II

"Great writers by definition are outriders, raiders of a sort, sweeping down from wilderness territories to disturb the peace, overrun the status quo and throw into question everything we know to be true. . . . On its face, the novel is a murder mystery, and at the book’s heart, always, is a deep love of Mexico and its people.” —Los Angeles Times Subcomandante Marcos is a spokesperson and strategist for the Zapatistas, an indigenous insurgency movement based in Mexico. Paco Ignacio Taibo II is the author of numerous works of award-winning fiction and nonfiction, which have been published in many languages around the world. He lives in Mexico City.

Subcomandante Marcos

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