Zapatista Stories For Dreaming An-Other World

"In this gorgeous collection of allegorical stories, Subcomandante Marcos, idiosyncratic spokesperson of the Zapatistas, has provided "an accidental archive" of a revolutionary group's struggle against neo-liberalism. For 30 years, the Zapatistas have influenced and inspired movements worldwide, showing that another world is possible. They have infused Left politics with a distinct imaginary--and an imaginative, literary or poetic dimension--organizing horizontally, outside and against the state, and with a profound respect for difference as a source of political insight, not division. With commentaries that illuminate their historical, political, and literary contexts and an introduction by the translators, this timeless elegiac volume is perfect for lovers of literature and lovers of revolution"--Page 4 of cover.

List of contents

Foreword by JoAnn Wypijewski

Acknowledgments

List of Images

Introduction to the English Translation of Los Otros Cuentos

The Stories

Antonio Dreams (August 1992)
Durito’s Story (April 10, 1994)
The Lion Kills by Looking (August 24, 1994)
The Story of the Little Mouse and the Little Cat (August 7, 1995)
The Story of the Sword, the Tree, the Stone, and the Water (September 29, 1995)
The Story of Noise and Silence (February 14, 1997)
The Story of the Others (January 20, 1998)
The Story of the Lion and the Mirror (July 17, 1998)
Forever and Never against Sometimes (September 12, 1998)
The Story of Looking (August 11, 1999)
We Who Came After Did Understand (August 31, 1999)
The Story of the Night Air (March 8, 2000)

The Commentaries

Antonio’s Dream and a Prophecy
Durito and Zapata Do Remember
On Moles, Lions, and Democracy
Not a Kids’ Fable
About the Strategy and Shape of Struggle
Muting the Sound of War
A World Connected through Solidarity
An End to the War of Extermination
A Matter of Time
On Autonomous Education
The Zapatista Legacy
Some Room Left for Love and Poetry

Afterword

Notes

Bibliography

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

About the author

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) was the Zapatista spokesperson until May of 2014 when the Zapatistas decided that his role had come to an end. While "Marcos" disappeared, he was reborn under a different name: Subcomandante Galeano, again adopting thename of a fallen comrade.

Summary

In this gorgeous collection of allegorical stories, Subcomandante Marcos, idiosyncratic spokesperson of the Zapatistas, has provided “an accidental archive” of a revolutionary group’s struggle against neo-liberalism. For 30 years, the Zapatistas have influenced and inspired movements worldwide, showing that another world is possible. They have infused Left politics with a distinct imaginary—and an imaginative, literary or poetic dimension—organizing horizontally, outside and against the state, and with a profound respect for difference as a source of political insight, not division. Marcos’s inspiring and sometimes Kafkaesque stories bear witness to how a defense of indigenous traditions can become a lever for the construction of a new anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal world. With commentaries that illuminate their historical, political, and literary contexts and an introduction by the translators, this timeless elegiac volume is perfect for lovers of literature and lovers of revolution.

Additional text

“From the beating heart
of Mesoamerica the old gods speak to Old Antonio, a glasses-wearing,
pipe-smoking beetle who studies neoliberalism, and both tell their tales to
Subcomandante Marcos who passes them on to us: the stories of the Zapatistas’
revolutionary struggles from below and to the Left. The Lightning Collective
(Amherst, Massachusetts) translates and comments with bolts of illumination
zig-zagging across cultures and nations bringing bursts of laughter and sudden
charges of hot-wired political energy. It seems like child’s play, and yet it’s
almost divine!”

—Peter Linebaugh, author of Red Round Globe Hot Burning
“This is a beautiful, inspired project. In a joyful Zapatista gesture
readers will welcome, this volume invites us to play, to walk on different, and
even contrary paths through smooth and crystalline translations that bring
these ‘other stories’ to life. The translators’ commentaries preserve a
delicate balance of expertise and autonomy as they illuminate the historical,
political, and cultural forces that provoked the stories’ creation. Among these
forces are Zapatista women, whom the translators rightly dignify in their
meticulous and provocative introduction. This volume is a gift to so many of us
as we (attempt to) bring the Zapatista imagination to our students and
organizing communities.”

—Michelle Joffroy, associate professor of Spanish and Latin American &
Latino Studies, Smith College and co-director of Domestic Workers Make History

“Thinking through the heart. This collection reminds, (re)grounds, and expands
our collective sense of possibility—as the Zapatistas so creatively have
continued to do for over 27 years. From the alter-globalization movements to
the horizontal assemblies in Argentina of the early 2000s, to Occupy and the Movements
of the Squares in the 2010s, through our pandemic solidarities and mutual aid
networks in the 2020s, prefigurative, autonomous and affective movements
continue to move with the Zapatistas in our hearts and minds. The influence and
inspiration is beyond words, and yet this collection gives words, placing
crucial stories of the Zapatista communities in historical context, giving us
more lenses through which to see the world and our movements within it.”

—Marina Sitrin, author of Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy
in Argentina

“On January 1, 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation not only had
the nerve to stare down the proclaimed End of History and launch a war against
the Mexican government, a war against neoliberalism, and a war against racial
and patriarchal capitalism in all its forms—while, in the process, recuperating
tens of thousands of acres of land that was stolen from the indigenous peoples
of Chiapas—but they did all this with a sense of humor, with poetry, and with, in
a word, literature. Zapatista Stories for Dreaming An-Other World,
expertly translated by the Colectivo Relámpago, offers an excellent
introduction to, and commentary on, the vast anti-archive of the Zapatista’s
other literature.”

—John Gibler, author of I Couldn't Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us: An
Oral History of the Attacks Against the Students of Ayotzinapa

“Since they first captured my attention in 1994, the EZLN’s struggle and
the writings of Subcommandante Marcos/Galeano have been a constant source of hope
and inspiration. During our current time of monsters, the stories that form
this wonderful ‘accidental archive of Zapatista struggle’ invite us to once
again embrace radical hope; to work for futures yet to be born; to affirm, yet
again, that other more just worlds are indeed possible. Revolutions have come
and gone, to paraphrase Emiliano Zapata, but the EZLN keep on with
theirs.”

—Alexander Aviña, author of Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in
the Cold War Mexican Countryside

“Weaving ancestral tales and memories from the time of colonial domination
with the recounting of the high points of the Zapatista insurgence, Zapatista
Stories for Dreaming An-Other World is a powerful example of historical
narrative and myth making. It bears witness to the creativity of the Zapatista
movement, and how the defense of indigenous tradition can be the lever for the
construction of a new world.”

—Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and
Primitive Accumulation

“Zapatista Stories for Dreaming An-Other World, is more than the
English translation of Los Otros Cuentos written by Subcomandante Insurgente
Marcos, it is a poetic and political dialogue between Zapatista thought and the
historical contextualization of a group of activist translators inspired by the
struggles of the indigenous peoples from Chiapas. The members of the Lightning
Collective make a hemeneutics reading of the Zapatista fables, from a profound
knowledge of the stories of resistance in the Maya region.

—R. Aída Hernández Castillo, author of 22 books including Multiple
Injustices: Indigenous Women Law and Political Struggle in Latin America

Product details

• Authors: Subcomandante Marcos, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, Colectivo Relampago, JoAnn Wypijewsk
• Assisted by: Joann Wypijewski (Foreword), Colectivo Relámpago (Translation), Lightning Collective (Editor and translation)
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 25.10.2022
• EAN: 9781629639703
• ISBN: 978-1-62963-970-3
• Dimensions: 127 mm x 203 mm x 12 mm
• Weight: 144 g
• Series: Kairos
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Caribbean & Latin American, HISTORY / Latin America / Mexico, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Politics, LITERARY CRITICISM / Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, LITERARY CRITICISM / Indigenous