Encounters in Comala V | Interview with Élmer Mendoza (47:03)
Bio Élmer Mendoza
Born in Culiacán, Mexico, in 1949, Élmer Mendoza is considered one of the greatest representatives of the so-called narcoliterature. He holds an honorary PhD from the Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa and is also a corresponding member of the Mexican Academy. He has published seven books of short stories and more than a dozen novels. The first of these, Un asesino solitario, was published in 1999, although it was not until 2007, with the publication of his work Balas de plata, that the author received international recognition. A work with which he won the Tusquets Novel Prize and in which his readers will meet for the first time the figure of the charismatic detective Edgar Mendieta, better known as Zurdo Mendieta. A shrewd officer, belonging to the Ministerial Police of the City of Culiacán who, not always through the most legal means, will try to seek the truth, questioning through his alliances and actions the Manichean discourse about the police and drug trafficking in Mexico.
We spoke with writer Élmer Mendoza about the latest installment of this iconic character. The novel Ella entró por la ventana del baño, published in 2021, in which Zurdo Mendieta will have two main missions this time: to catch “El Siciliano”, one of the leaders of a group of ex-military men dedicated to drug trafficking, and to find the former love of the dying businessman Ricardo Favela.
