“From the City Looking Out, Out of the City Looking In”

The novel Muertos incómodos is subtitled `novela a cuatro manos'. It was written in `ping-pong' style, according to the Web Prologue, by Subcomandante Marcos and Paco Ignacio Taibo II, where each wrote and reacted to the other through alternating chapters. The former is well known for his recourse to the imaginative and cultural tools at his disposal in his communiqués, the latter is one of the most prolific Mexican novelists. In this article, I shall examine the textual encounter of two apparently disparate worlds and show how the city is constructed in this richly layered text.