Marcos leaps from socialism to sex

Photograph by : F. Sanchez

Subcomandante Marcos, everyone’s favorite masked revolutionary, tries his hand at the classic “bodice ripper” with the publication of an illustrated erotic novel.

Story by : MEGAN SMITH

It is getting steamy in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas, and it isn’t just summer humidity. An erotic novel by Subcomandante Marcos, the masked leader of the Zapatista National Liberation Army, is heating things up.

Smoking his ever-present pipe, Marcos presented “Noches de fuego y desvelo” (Nights of Fire and Sleeplessness) to an audience of 200 at the University of Guadalajara’s Social Sciences and Humanities center last Friday. It is the latest part of a series of tales Marcos has entitled “El Amor: Sus modos y ni modos (Love: Its Ways and No Ways)” about love in the ranks of his famous indigenous autonomy movement in southern Mexico.

Marcos attributed the inspiration for the book to a visit with his friend, painter Antonio Ramirez, in Guadalajara one year ago.

“I want to thank [Ramirez], in the place where this dream commenced its journey to image and print,” Marcos began, addressing his collaborator.

Together, Macros said, they hammered out a story around the collected love letters of a fictional Zapatista fighter named Sombra. Ramirez’s oil and pastel illustrations, which Marcos called “irreverent,” illuminate Sombra’s passionate encounters.

There is clearly something of the autobiographical in Marcos’ work. Ramirez said Marcos entered his studio last year and was transfixed by a painting that reminded him of his beloved.
“He told me that he had tried to seduce her from his cave in the mountains, despite his loyalty [to the Zapatistas] and the strict rules of discipline in his role as a commander,” said Ramirez.
“Noches de fuego y desvelo” in many ways heralds back the 14th and 15th century Spanish tradition of courtly love stories, the libros de caballerias in which knights preoccupy themselves with ideal love, ignoring the qualities of the real women in favor of what they represent.
“She could be anything; the nation, freedom, the people’s struggle – or she could be woman in general,” says Ramirez, who says illustrating Sombra’s lover was his greatest challenge in the project.

In one letter, a defeated Sombra disfavorably compares love to capitalism, distracting from the warrior’s noble socialist struggle.

The 64-page, large-format edition was published by Colectivo Callejero, a Guadalajara-based artists’ collective founded by Ramirez and his wife Domitilia, which has dedicated itself to colorfully illustrating messages for the Zapatista movement.

“Their work is merchandise indigenous communities use to continue constructing a new and better world; that is to say, more just, more free, and more dignified,” said Marcos.

Hardly a populist manifesto at 900 pesos, the book’s price is inaccessible to the rank and file of Zapatista community organizing. But Marcos, ever a savvy marketer, has long had a knack for opening the wallets of well-off sympathizers in Mexico and abroad. It is for them that the book is targeted.

All proceeds from book sales will benefit healthcare solutions in the autonomous indigenous communities. “That is the reason for the cost. To some people it appears high; we don’t think it is too much – the quality of the work and the cause which it supports justify the cost,” said Efrain Herrera, who designed the book.

“Noches de fuego y desvelo” will be difficult to find, at least in its first edition. Only bookshops deemed to be “in solidarity” with the Zapatistas, willing to forfeit commissions from the sale of the book, have been chosen by the Colectivo Callejero to distribute it. Two small, downtown bookstores in Guadalajara currently carry it: El Aguaje and La Rueda.