Mexican rebel leader pens crime novel

Mexican rebel leader pens crime novel
25 February 2005

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS: Fact and fiction are blurring in Mexico where Subcomandante Marcos, the enigmatic Zapatista guerrilla chief, has confounded supporters and literary critics by launching a career as a crime writer.

In Uncomfortable Deaths, the Zapatistas send rebel Elias Contreras to skulk about Mexico City and uncover the secrets of a shadowy right-wing group that carried out "dirty war" murders in the 1970s and maintains ties to the current government.

The narrative wanders through musings on the nature of good and evil, insider political jokes and encounters with characters like a pensive transvestite and a Purepecha Indian who once sold tacos to Leon Trotsky.

It is the latest twist in the life story of Marcos, who became the darling of the anti-globalization movement when he led the Zapatista uprising in the state of Chiapas in 1994 hidden behind a ski mask and smoking his trademark pipe.

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