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Mexico City Journalists to Speak at Millsaps

As Mexico celebrates two major anniversaries, its independence bicentennial and the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, Millsaps College welcomes two journalists for a free public symposium about Mexico City on Friday, April 9 at 12:30 p.m.

Veteran reporters and authors John Ross and David Lida, along with Andrew Paxman, assistant professor of history at Millsaps, will discuss what it's like to live in the Mexican megalopolis of Mexico City, home to 20 million people.

"As well as having 45 years of journalistic experience between them, John and David are engaging speakers and often provocative in their opinions," Paxman said.

Ross's new book, El Monstruo: Dread & Redemption in Mexico City, is an impressionistic history of the Mexican capital with a special sympathy for the poor. Kirkus Reviews has called it "a brave, stirring love letter, cautionary tale and travelogue."

Lida's latest, First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century, embraces all manner of urban characters, from barmen to hookers, street vendors to expatriate artists. The New Orleans Times Picayune hailed it as a "hip-smart tour through a baroque society ... probing and witty."

Drug-related violence, spiraling through much of the country and recently claiming several American lives, will also be addressed by the two Mexico-based journalists.

Ross has lived in Mexico since 1985 and has paid particular attention to its violent underbelly. He is also author of Rebellion from the Roots, about the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, as well as Murdered by Capitalism and Mexico in Focus.

Lida's work includes the collection Travel Advisory: Stories, while Paxman is the co-author of El Tigre, a biography of the late media mogul Emilio Azcárraga, Mexico's answer to Rupert Murdoch.

The symposium will be in room 215 of the Ford Academic Complex from 12:30 to 2 p.m. For more information contact Steve Smith at 974-1334.