John Gibler – författare

Mexico is in a state of siege. Since President Felipe Calderon declared a war on drugs in December 2006, more than 38,000 Mexican have been murdered. During the same period, drug money has infused over $130 billion into Mexico''s economy, now the country''s single largest source of income. Corruption and graft infiltrate all levels of government. Entire towns have become ungovernable, and of every 100 people killed, Mexican police now only investigate approximately five.

But the market is booming: In 2009, more people in the United States bought recreational drugs than ever before. In 2009, the United Nations reported that some $350 billion in drug money had been successfully laundered into the global banking system the prior year, saving it from collapse.

How does an "extra" $350 billion in the global economy affect the murder rate in Mexico? To get the story and connect the dogs, acclaimed journalist John Gibler travels across Mexico and slips behind the frontlines to talk with people who live in towns under assault: newspaper reporters and crime-beat photographers, funeral parlor workers, convicted drug traffickers, government officials, cab drivers and others who find themselves living on the lawless frontiers of the drug war. Gibler tells hair-raising stories of wild street battles, kidnappings, narrow escapes, politicians on the take, and the ordinary people who fight for justice as they seek solutions to the crisis that is tearing Mexico apart. Fast-paced and urgent, To Die in Mexico is an extraordinary look inside the raging drug war, and its global implications.

John Gibler is a writer based in Mexico and California, the author of Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt (City Lights Books, 2009) and a contributor to País de muertos: Crónicas contra la impunidad (Random House Mondadori, 2011). He is a correspondent for KPFA in San Francisco and has published in magazines in the United States and Mexico, including Left Turn, Z Magazine, Earth Island Journal, ColorLines, Race, Poverty, the Environment Fifth Estate, New Politics, In These Times, Yes! Magazine, Contralínea and Milenio Semanal.

"Gibler''s front-line reportage coupled with first-rate analysis gives an uncommonly vivid and nuanced picture of a society riddled and enervated by corruption, shootouts, and raids, where murder is the ''most popular method of conflict resolution.'' . . . At great personal risk, the author unearths stories the mainstream media doesn''t—or is it too afraid—to cover, and gives voice to those who have been silenced or whose stories have been forgotten."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Gibler argues passionately to undercut this ''case study in failure.'' The drug barons are only getting richer, the murders mount and the police and military repression expand as ''illegality increases the value of the commodity.'' With legality, both U.S. and Mexican society could address real issues of substance abuse through education and public-health initiatives. A visceral, immediate and reasonable argument."—Kirkus Reviews

"Gibler provides a fascinating and detailed insight into the history of both drug use in the US and the ''war on drugs'' unleashed by Ronald Reagan through the very plausible—but radical—lens of social control. . . . Throughout this short but powerful book, Gibler accompanies journalists riding the grim carousel of death on Mexico''s streets, exploring the realities of a profession under siege in states such as Sinaloa and just how they cover the drugs war."—Gavin O’Toole, The Latin American Review of Books

Mexico Unconquered is an evocative report on the powers of violence and corruption in Mexico and the rebel underdogs who put their lives on the line to build justice from the ground up. Mexico Unconquered probes the overwhelming divisions in contemporary Mexico, home to the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim, and to destitute millions. John Gibler weaves narrative journalism with lyrical descriptions, combining the journalist’s trade of walking the streets and the philosopher’s task of drawing out the tremendous implications of the seemingly mundane.

John Gibler has reported for In These Times, Common Dreams, YES! Magazine, ColorLines and Democracy Now!.

Chosen as a Best Book of 2017 by Publishers Weekly!

Harrowing personal narratives describing how Mexican authorities disappeared, killed, and injured scores of students and others in a still-unsolved crime.

"Journalist Gibler''s investigative prowess yields a book that uses a chorus of voices—eyewitness accounts of the students and others at the scene—to add depth and clarity to the Sept. 26, 2014, massacre of students in the city of Iguala, Mexico, that left six people dead, 40 wounded, and 43 students missing who have yet to be seen since. It''s an unforgettable reconstruction of a national tragedy."—Publishers Weekly, Best of 2017, Nonfiction

"After nine months of intensive research for a book on the case of the forty-three, Gibler decided that ''what needs to be shared, urgently, are both the words and the storytelling of the people who lived through the attacks.'' . . . The testimonies in I Couldn''t Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us offer stunning evidence again and again that members of the army, as well as local and state police, helped carry out the attack."—The New York Review of Books

" . . . valuable oral history . . ."—London Review of Books

"In Mexico, John Gibler''s book has been recognized as a journalistic masterpiece, an instant classic, and the most powerful indictment available of the devastating state crime committed against the 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students in Iguala. This meticulous, choral recreation of the events of that night is brilliantly vivid and alive, it will terrify and inspire you and shatter your heart."—Francisco Goldman, writer for The New Yorker, author of The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle

On September 26, 2014, police in Iguala, Mexico attacked five busloads of students and a soccer team, killing six people and abducting forty-three students—now known as the Iguala 43—who have not been seen since. In a coordinated cover-up of the government''s role in the massacre and forced disappearance, Mexican authorities tampered with evidence, tortured detainees, and thwarted international investigations. Within days of the atrocities, John Gibler traveled to the region and began reporting from the scene. Here he weaves the stories of survivors, eyewitnesses, and the parents of the disappeared into a tour de force of journalism, a heartbreaking account of events that reads with the momentum of a novel. A vital counter-narrative to state violence and impunity, the stories also offer a testament of hope from people who continue to demand accountability and justice.

John Gibler lives and writes in Mexico. He is the author of Torn from the World, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, To Die in Mexico: Dispatches From Inside the Drug War, 20 poemas para ser leídos en una balacera, Tzompaxtle: La fuga de un guerrillero. His work on Ayotzinapa has been published in California Sunday Magazine, featured on NPR''s "All Things Considered," and praised by The New Yorker.

"The book that most shocked me this year for its literary quality is called Tzompaxtle, although in English it has another title, Torn from the World. The author is John Gibler, a real outlaw."--Diego Enrique Osorno, author of El Cartel de Sinaloa

Andres Tzompaxtle Tecpile was torn from the world. Abducted off the street, blindfolded and beaten, he was brought to a Mexican military facility and "disappeared." Tzompaxtle, a young member of an insurgent guerrilla movement, was subjected to months of interrogation and torture as the military tried to extract information from him. In an effort to buy time to protect his family and comrades, and to keep himself alive, he lead his captors on fruitless journeys to abandoned safe-houses and false rendezvous locations for four months. Finally, faced with imminent execution, he decided to make what he thought was a suicidal attempt at escape; when he miraculously survived, he was able to return underground.

Gleaned from years of clandestine interviews, Tzompaxtle''s story offers a rare glimpse into chronic injustice, underground resistance movements, and the practice of forced disappearance and torture in contemporary Mexico.

"At once harrowing and humane, John Gibler''s wonderful new book shines a light on the darkest corners of the Mexican justice system. We cannot turn away from what we see there. This is a brave, daring book, equal in every way to the extraordinary life it documents."--Daniel Alarcon, author of The King is Always Above the People

"Once in a long while a brilliant writer happens on a story he was born to tell--a story that in its stark and unremitting horror gives us a glimpse of the world as it is, unvarnished and unredeemed. John Gibler is such a writer and Torn From the World is such a story. A wrenching, astonishing tale, brilliantly told."--Mark Danner, author of The Massacre at El Mozote

"Torn from the World is the product of a thorough investigation and it is written with rage and humility at the same time. This is the work of one of the most important journalists of our time."--Yuri Herrera, author of Signs Preceding the End of the World

"John Gibler''s powerful recounting of the forced disappearance of Andres Tzompaxtle Tecpile unearths the brutal machinery of state-sanctioned torture and terrorism in Mexico today. This book must provoke an outcry."--Sujatha Fernandes, author of Curated Stories

"Not since Rodolfo Walsh''s classic Operation Massacre have I read a work of political and literary journalism as inventive and urgent as John Gibler''s Torn from the World. With courage, empathy, and clear-sightedness, Gibler tackles questions most journalists won''t go near.”--Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine

"The North American journalist John Gibler not only presents here the guerrilla combatant''s story, but also contextualized it within the broader, very troubled history of class relations in Guerrero and the contemporary proliferation of human rights abuses in Mexico, from Ayotzinapa to Ciudad."--Jesse Lerner, author of The Shock of Modernity