«—¿Cómo se llama este pueblo, señor?
—Es San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca —dijo—. Allá está el viejo convento. Era una iglesia rota, enorme, hueca y solitaria.
—¿Qué significa Coixtlahuaca?
—El llano de las serpientes.»Paul Theroux ha recorrido el mundo en busca de las historias y los pueblos que dan vida a los lugares que llaman hogar. Ahora, mientras los debates sobre inmigración hierven en todo el mundo, Theroux se ha propuesto explorar un país clave para comprender el discurso global actual: México.
Con la misma sensibilidad humanizadora que lo caracteriza, el legendario escritor de viajes recorre toda la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, se adentra en las carreteras de Chiapas y Oaxaca, visita a los trabajadores de los molinos zapotecas en el altiplano y asiste a una reunión del partido zapatista para descubrir el mundo rico y estratificado que también hay detrás de un país convulso.
«Hace amigos, va a todos lados, aprende español con otros extranjeros, ve cómo hacen mezcal, toma clases de cocina y, sobre todo, aprende y escucha, una de las lecciones del libro. […] Un libro tan complejo, tan interesante y sobre todo tan imprescindible.» —Pedro Ángel Palou,
El HeraldoENGLISH DESCRIPTIONThe legendary travel writer drives the entire length of the US-Mexico border, then takes the back roads of Chiapas and Oaxaca, to uncover the rich, layered world behind the everyday headlines.
Paul Theroux has spent his life crisscrossing the globe in search of the histories and peoples that give life to the places they call home. Now, as immigration debates boil around the world, Theroux has set out to explore a country key to understanding our current discourse: Mexico. Just south of the Arizona border, in the desert region of Sonora, he finds a place brimming with vitality, yet visibly marked by both the US Border Patrol to the north and mounting discord from within. With the same humanizing sensibility that he employed in Deep South, Theroux stops to talk with residents, visits Zapotec mill workers in the highlands, and attends a Zapatista party meeting, communing with people of all stripes who remain south of the border even as family members brave the journey north. From the writer praised for his “curiosity and affection for humanity in all its forms” (
The New York Times Book Review),
On the Plain of Snakes is an exploration of a region in conflict.
As immigration debates boil around the world, Theroux set out to explore a country key to understanding our current discourse: Mexico. Just south of the Arizona border, in the desert region of Sonora, he finds a place brimming with vitality, yet visibly marked by both the US Border Patrol looming to the north and mounting discord from within. He spent time communing with people of all stripes who remain south of the border even as their families brave the journey north. In doing so Theroux uncovers the rich, layered world behind today's brutal headlines.
