"Subcomandante Marcos to Pen Political Fiction"

E. Eduardo Castillo, Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — Leftist Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante
Marcos, who slipped largely out of the public eye three
years ago, plans to re-emerge in fiction as the co-author of
a police/political novel that will appear in excerpts in a
leftist newspaper, his collaborator announced Friday.

The book, to be titled The Awkward Dead, will appear in La
Jornada each weekend beginning Sunday, co-author Paco
Ignacio Taibo II, a well-known writer of police novels, told
W Radio.All proceeds of the book will be donated to an
as-yet-undesignated nongovernmental organization that works
in the Zapatista zones of Chiapas, Taibo said.

The first six chapters will be written alternately by each
of the men, with Marcos, leader and spokesman of the
Zapatista National Liberation Army, focusing on chapters on
national security, corruption and abuse of power, Taibo said.

The novel is to be based both in Mexico City and the
southernmost state of Chiapas where Marcos lives in a jungle
hideout. "I received a letter a few days ago from the
subcomandante proposing the project," Taibo said. "The
possibility of writing a novel with four hands seemed fun to
me and so we're going to see how it goes."

The ski mask-wearing Marcos, whom officials identified in
1995 as former university instructor Rafael Sebastián
Guillen, led a brief armed uprising in southern Chiapas
state in January 1994.