Oswaldo Zavala, Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at the College of Staten Island and The Graduate Center, CUNY, has been garnering considerable media attention since he published the book, Los cárteles no existen. Narcotráfico y cultura en México (Barcelona: Malpaso, 2018), recently translated as Drug Cartels Do Not Exist. Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2022), as well as his latest investigative work, La guerra en las palabras. Una historia intelectual del “narco” en México (1975 – 2020) [War Within Words. An Intellectual History of the Mexican “Narco” (1975-2020) (México: Debate, 2020). The title of the former speaks for itself. In the latter book, Zavala traces the mythological narratives about the drug trade driven by the governments on both sides of the border to legitimize the military intervention in Mexico. He contends that so-called “drug cartels” have been conceived as extraordinary enemies to justify the deployment of soldiers and to normalize human rights violations and other atrocities. There have been over half a million killings and more than 100 thousand forced disappearances since the militarization of the country began in 2006. As a result, Zavala’s research has been featured in a number of publications, including The Los Angeles Times and The Nation.
Looking back on his background in attempting to understand drug trafficking and the so-called “war on drugs,” Zavala said that his work began in the 1990s when he became a newspaper reporter in Ciudad Juárez, which shares the border with El Paso, TX. “I was fortunate to have as mentors brilliant journalists who taught me to question the official version about the drug trade and to think critically of the language we use to describe traffickers and their groups,” he said. Read more...
