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In Mexico City on the night of October 2, 1968, at least two hundred students-among thousands protesting election fraud and campaigning for university reform-were shot dead in a bloody showdown with government troops in Tlatelolco Square. The bodies were collected and trucked away and the cobblestones washed clean. Hundreds more were arrested, and imprisoned for years. To this day, no one has been held accountable for the acts of savagery and these events are nowhere to be found in official histories. One member of the crowd that night, Paco Taibo, would become an international literary figure. '68 is his account of the events of October 2, and of the student movement that preceded them. In provocative, anecdotal prose, Taibo claims for history "one more of the many unredeemed and sleepless ghosts that live in our lands."
About the author
Paco Ignacio Taibo II, author of more than fifty books, is a distinguished historian and essayist. He is also renowned worldwide for his detective novels. His numerous literary honors include three Hammett Prizes, a Planeta prize for the best historical novel, and the Bancarella Prize for his biography of Che Guevara. In December 2018, Taibo was named director of the Mexican government’s national publishing house, Fondo de Cultura Economica, by the new Obrador administration.
Donald Nicholson-Smith has translated numerous works from the French and Spanish including Guy Debord’s
The Society of the Spectacle and Raoul Vaneigem’s
The Revolution of Everyday Life.
Summary
In Mexico City on the night of October 2, 1968, at least two hundred students—among thousands protesting election fraud and campaigning for university reform—were shot dead in a bloody showdown with government troops in Tlatelolco Square. The bodies were collected and trucked away and the cobblestones washed clean. Hundreds more were arrested, and imprisoned for years. To this day, no one has been held accountable for the acts of savagery and these events are nowhere to be found in official histories. One member of the crowd that night, Paco Taibo, would become an international literary figure. ’68 is his account of the events of October 2, and of the student movement that preceded them. In provocative, anecdotal prose, Taibo claims for history “one more of the many unredeemed and sleepless ghosts that live in our lands.”
Additional text
“Beautifully realized memoir of the Oct. 1968 Tlatelolco student massacre . . . [Taibo] evokes relationships, passions and arguments lovingly. . . [His] memoir goes a long way toward setting the record straight.” —Publishers Weekly
“The real enchantment of Mr. Taibo's storytelling art lies in the 'wild and melancholy' tango of life he sees everywhere.” –Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
