Myths and Latin American Reality in Post-Truth Times - Conversation with Elmer Mendoza and Peter Watt

The new series Thinking Ibero-America invites personalities from this vast cultural region and British experts to share and discuss their visions. The first instalment brings together Mexican novelist Èlmer Mendoza, a representative of the so-called narco-literature, and Dr. Peter Watt, a Hispanist from the University of Sheffield who specialises in human rights and organised crime.

The theme of the talk is the reality of crime and corruption in Mexico and Latin America, its effects on those societies, and how these issues are projected by the media as well as by the novels of Mendoza, especially in this new stage of relations with the United States with Donald Trump as president.

Two of Èlmer Mendoza’s novels have been translated into English: Silver Bullets (MacLehose Press, 2015) and Acid Test (MacLehose Press, 2016). His other novels include Un asesino solitario (A solitary killer, 1999), Efecto tequila (Tequila Effect, 2004), and Besar al detective (Kissing the Detective, 2016). He is also a playwright and professor of Literature at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa.

Dr. Peter Watt is Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Sheffield and co-author of Drug War Mexico. Politics, Violence and Neoliberalism in the New Narcoeconomy (Zed Books, 2012).

Languages: Spanish and English (consecutive translation)

The event will take place in the Senate Room at Senate House, London WC1 7HU.

The cycle Pensar Iberoamérica is a cooperation between the Instituto Cervantes and Canning House in collaboration with ILAS and IMLR.

With the collaboration of MacLehose Press.