[A-List] George Galloway and Mexican fiction

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Galloway brings Zapatista to book

Duncan Campbell
Thursday December 23, 2004
The Guardian

Both are high-profile, left-wing mavericks famous for their political
theatricality, snappy style and taste in fine tobacco. Now a publishing
venture brings them together for the first time.

The two are George Galloway, the Glasgow Kelvin MP who is still celebrating
his £150,000 libel victory over the Daily Telegraph, and Subcomandante
Marcos, leader of the Zapatista guerrilla movement in Mexico. What has
brought them together is a publishing house called Friction which Mr
Galloway is starting in the new year.

The first author to be signed is the Mexican crime writer Paco Ignacio
Taibo, who is writing a weekly newspaper serial with Subcomandante Marcos,
or "El Sub", as the charismatic Zapatista is known. Negotiations to secure
the joint work are at an advanced stage, according to Mr Galloway's partner
in the venture, the Scottish journalist Ron McKay.

Friction, which will be based in Glasgow and London, will be partly funded
by Mr Galloway's libel winnings. It will publish all eight of Taibo's crime
novels featuring the Mexico City private eye Hector Belascoaran Shayne.

The fictional detective is the main character in the current novel, which is
titled Muertos Incomodos (The Awkward Dead) and is being co-written by
Subcomandante Marcos and Taibo, and published in a Mexican newspaper.
Friction - motto, "books that burn" - hopes the completed novel will be one
of its first publications.

"Taibo is a legend in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world but he
has never been published in this country," Mr McKay said. "Shayne, the
protagonist of his crime thrillers, is a unique creation. But not only does
Taibo tell a marvellous tale, in exquisite language, there is a political
dynamic in his work which must be unique in the genre."

Mr Galloway described Shayne yesterday as "an edgy radical detective, a
Philip Marlowe character walking on the left side of the road".

Subcomandante Marcos, who has led a long-running campaign for the rights of
impoverished Mexicans, is famously anonymous. He wears a balaclava helmet
which, he once said, he could not remove because it would be unfair on other
men in Mexico to reveal his dashing good looks. He also traditionally smokes
a small pipe.

Mr Galloway, who acquired the nickname "Gorgeous George" because of his
stylish suits and Havana cigars, is awaiting news of whether the Daily
Telegraph will go ahead with its appeal against his libel victory.