Oscar Martinez, trans. by Daniela Maria Ugaz and John B. Washington
RaveBriar Patch Magazine (CA)...a shining model of what journalism as a practice of solidarity can look like, and a must-read for anyone who believes journalism can be a tool for transforming society. The book’s virtues lie in Martínez’s unwavering commitment to documenting, first-hand, the most dangerous migrant route in the hemisphere and in the quality of his writing: observant, austere, and lyrical, yet seething with indignation beneath the cool accumulation of detail ... Through their stories, Martínez paints a picture of courageous, audacious, and endlessly resilient people on the move, driven into the arms of the empire by economic hardship and the spiral of violence that has consumed Central America in recent years ... Whether he’s recounting the personal tragedies that drive people north; or describing the frequent accidents, assaults, and robberies atop the train; or detailing the particular struggles of migrant women, an estimated eighty per cent of whom are sexually assaulted along the route; the horrors of Martínez’s account are compounded by the terseness of their telling ... Martínez’s dispatches bear witness to the deepening of Mexico’s militarized drug war, that blunt tool of social control that in recent years has engulfed the country in spectacular violence.
