Hello Y’all!
Following up on the series of new literature it is the turn to Professor Ricardo Elizondo Elizondo. Elizondo is a professor at Tec de Monterrey currently, guest lecturing and speaking of border and cultural issues. The book I had the pleasure to read written by him was “Narcedalia Piedrotas”.
This is a novel about the desert- the “no man’s land” for the Government- where mystic, excentric, beautiful, immigrant characters mix in a journey through the edges of the country and of language. NArcedalia, the main character, earns her name for being as tough as a rock, a “piedra”. Her husband, Valentín, gets involved with drug trafficking and drags his whole family into it. Only Narcedalia’s cunning might get them alive so she becomes a modern day “Godfather” like the cosa nostra for the Italians.
Elizondo reconstructed this book from his travels researching language changes and variations close to the border and in these travels he got to know of stories and towns that create new structures around drug trafficking. In places where the Government decides not to intervene, drug lords become leaders, heroes and saviors of those close to the border. A very interesting read, and a deep peer inside the newfound meaning for what being Mexican means close to the border.
Monterrey, 3rd largest city in Mexico and hometown to Elizondo, is part of the cultural phenomenon that involves border towns: drug lords and immigration.
