Drama on the Border: Readings with author Marc Zimmerman

Author Marc Zimmerman reads from his new book Sandino on the Border which centers on Ben’s relation to Helena, a Nicaraguan woman who searches for personal and professional growth in the context of the Central American struggle during the Cold War on the U.S.-Mexican border and beyond—all in the shadow of Nicaraguan national hero, César Augusto Sandino. The story also involves Helena’s uncle, who coordinates Sandinista-related border crossings; her mother, who smuggles clothes from San Diego to Mexico City; her aunt who fails to keep her son’s family from falling apart in L.A.; a grandmother smuggled across the border and expressing wonder at the MacDonaldized world she beholds.

Written with humor, irony and a feel for border pain and pathos, Sandino on the Border anticipates key border themes developing long before the current age of deportations and the talk of building a wall. This book is a sequel to Lines on the Border.

Marc Zimmerman is an author of Latino Literature and recent works of Mexican/Latino themed fiction, Professor Emeritus of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago and of World Cultures and Literatures at the University of Houston.