Generación ¡bang! Los nuevos cronistas del narco mexicano ed. by Juan Meneses (review)

Beyond adding to the numerous anthologies of narcocrónicas that in recent years have saturated bookstores (Carlos Monsiváis and others’ 2004 anthology Viento rojo: Diez historias del narco en México; Diego Enrique Osorno’s 2011 País de muertos: Crónicas contra la impunidad; Alejandro Rosas and Ricardo Cayuela Gally’s 2011 El México que nos duele; and Magali Tercero’s 2011 Cuando llegaron los bárbaros: Vida cotidiana y narcotráfico), Generación ¡bang! Los nuevos cronistas del narco mexicano is a compilation that not only showcases new creative work by young Mexican writers but also offers a much-needed critical commentary on the now “booming” genre of narcocrónica.

The writers featured in the anthology—the generación ¡bang!—are all young chroniclers from Mexico. Unlike conventional investigative journalists, these writers focus on the “human side” of organized crime—rather than cite statistics, they tell the stories behind both victims and criminals, offer their own insights regarding the reasons for narco-related violence, raise new questions, and invite readers to do the same. While readers themselves may question the use of the term generation to refer to this group of writers, Meneses affirms its relevance, citing his use of the following criteria in their selection: the writers selected “were less than thirty-five years old at the beginning of Calderón’s six-year presidential term, had not experienced firsthand the political violence in Mexico of the 1960s, and had not covered the Central American wars of the 1980s or reported on the Zapatista awakening of the 1990s” (12–13, my translation). Because of these circumstances (youth, lack of firsthand experience), as well as the writers’ experimentation with the genre of literary chronicle, the generation offers a fresh perspective on drug-related violence and an innovative approach to writing about it. The task of chronicling the lives of those involved in or affected by the drug trade is one that Meneses admits wanting to have carried out himself, but he was held back by his own insecurities about it. Instead, he acts as compiler and editor of the anthology of writers featured here.

The book is divided into eleven chapters, or “bangs”: “Bang 1,” “Bang 2,” “Bang 3,” etc. Each bang represents the work of a young author who has suddenly emerged to leave a lasting impression on the genre of the narcocrónica (hence the explosive and resounding onomatopoeia). The bangs include examples of both the creative work and the critical commentary of the authors, who appear alphabetically: Alejandro Almazán, Daniel de la Fuente, Galia García Palafox, Thelma Gómez Durán, Luis Guillermo Hernández, Diego Enrique Osorno, Humberto Padgett, Daniela Rea, Emiliano Ruiz Parra, Marcela Turati, and Juan Veledíaz. Despite their age, these writers have already published novels and anthologies of chronicles and have received prestigious literary prizes. They are regular contributors to publications such as El Universal, Proceso, Milenio, Gatopardo, Emeequis, and Soho.

While conventional journalism provides only statistics, this book offers a more “inside perspective” on narco-violence made possible by the writers’ participation in some of the stories they chronicle, or at least the use of in-depth interviews with people involved. Among the pages of Generación ¡bang!, we find the story of a reformed drug trafficker, a view from the inside of a morgue containing the bodies of victims of organized crime, an unexpected encounter with a relative of a sicario and children who pretend to be one, a young female former police chief who fears for her life, and makeshift “community police” (often of indigenous background) who enforce justice autonomously in accordance with the customs of their pueblos. These chronicles, some of which nearly constitute testimonials, stand out for their use of language, insider’s view, unofficial or unconventional perspective, and general demystification of a variety of aspects of the illegal drug...