Paul Theroux

Paul Theroux is the author of many highly acclaimed books of fiction and nonfiction. His novels include The Lower River and The Mosquito Coast, and his travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari. As immigration debates boil around the world, Paul Theroux set out to explore Mexico, a country key to understanding our current discourse. In On the Plain of Snakes (Mariner Books) drives the entire length of the US–Mexico border, then goes deep into the hinterland. Just south of the Arizona border, in the desert region of Sonora, he finds a place brimming with vitality, yet visibly marked by both the US Border Patrol to the north and mounting discord from within. He stops to talk with residents, visits Zapotec mill workers in the highlands, and attends a Zapatista party meeting, communing with people of all stripes who remain south of the border even as family members brave the journey north. Mexican journalist, playwright, and author Juan Villoro called Theroux “an undisputed master of travel literature. He has traversed Mexico with such dedication that he knows its roads as he knows the lines on the palm of his hand. His curiosity does not recognize borders. Nor is he a stranger among us: he is Don Pablo, a wise man who never stops learning.”