Translation Rights TQE / Tijuana: crime and oblivion

Magda Gilbert is a young journalist from Tijuana trying to recover from the murder of her first boyfriend; she sleeps with a gun tucked beneath her pillow. Juan Antonio Mendívil is an old-time reporter for a San Diego newspaper who can hardly bear to live through his personal tragedy, that of a frustrated writer wasting his time working for a second-rate paper. As soon as their lives cross, an intense relationship begins that will end in their inexplicable disappearance. Has Magda become a victim of the violence against journalists carried out by narcos? Has oblivion swept away the memory of Juan, or is it all due to the ghosts of an old police investigation that no one should have brought back to life? Only a writer will have the courage to investigate the last days of Gilbert and Mendívil. His main obstacle will be the government of a country without the power or the will to face up to the violence and find the culprits.

Luis Humberto Crosthwaite (Tijuana, 1962) has worked as a Communication professor at the UIA of Mexico D.F. His short stories have been included in the anthologies De surcos como trazos, como letras (1992) by Héctor Perea Storm and La antología de la narrativa mexicana del siglo XX (1996) by Christopher Domínguez. He is the author of several books of short stories and of novels such as Estrella de la calle Sexta (The Star on Sixth Street), Aparta de mí este cáliz (Take This Chalice from Me), and Idos de la mente (Gone in the Head). He is currently a columnist in Enlace, the Spanish supplement of the San Diego Union Tribune, and lives in the northern part of the border between Mexico and the United States.

Praise for Tijuana: crimen y olvido:

 “A story that provokes anxiety due to a narrative strategy that masterfully combines the diverse elements of journalistic genres.” Al filo de la jornada

“A sharp and very tough novel about love and suspense which the reader cannot put down until the very end.” Irma Gallo