Conversations with Durito: Stories of the Zapatistas and the Defeat of Neoliberalism

In 1994, from the Lacandon jungle, Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos replied to a ten-year-old girl in Mexico City who sent him a drawing. In his response, Marcos conjured up a first fable introducing the beetle and knight-errant Don Durito de la Lacandona. The ensuing output of Durito-related communiqués and tales comprise a broad discourse of the Zapatistas’ struggle, revealing their organizational history, their critique of traditional politics, and the reasons for their opposition to neoliberalism.

Conversations with Durito includes all the Durito stories issued at the time of publication, translated, annotated, and contextualized by the Accion Zapatista Editorial Collective, and illustrated by visual artists influenced by Zapatismo. Poetic, humorous, and imaginative, these fables provide an excellent introduction to the politics of globalization from the radical perspective of indigenous struggle. As a member of Accion Zapatista, I served on the editorial collective for Conversations with Durito.