Poetics of Indigenismo in Zapatista Discourse: The Mexican Revolution Revisioned through Mayan Eyes

This book contributes to a re-visioning of the literature of revolutions, repositioning the writings of Subcomandante Marcos as quasi-“indigenous” literary texts. Highlights include a study of the role of Zapatista mythopoetics in re-imagining the nature of revolution; and an examination of how a native subculture and cosmovision were made intelligible to an international audience. Close readings of a group of stories, essays and communiques by Marcos explore the emergence of a thoroughly hybrid literary style. These texts are analyzed in relation to existing genres such Native American literature, environmental literature, and the literature of the Mexican revolution. The book shows that, while Marcos employs the iconography of Che Guevara, Zapata, et al, and in some ways furthers the “romance of revolution” for an electronically networked world, he has also popularized on an international stage the post-Cold War aspiration to “change the world without taking power.”