Latin America reveres its authors like nowhere else in the world, as proved by the welcome for Carlos Fuentes at the Hay Festival in Cartagena, Colombia.
The 83-year-old author was feted like a rock star, soaking up the cheers and applause from a multi-generational audience that hung on his every word.
Fuentes, Mexico's greatest writer and a former diplomat, addressed the contemporary problems of Latin American – in particular, Mexico’s drug problem.
He said: “The drug traffickers are in Mexico, they send the drugs to the US and once they get across the border what happens? We don’t know who consumes them. We can’t prosecute, we can’t defend. It’s a very difficult situation for us Mexicans. The governments of the US and Mexico have to fight drug trafficking together.”
Fuentes believes that decriminalising drugs is the only way to end the violence that in the past five years has claimed nearly 50,000 lives of gang members, security forces and innocent bystanders .... Read more at http://www.telegraph.co.uk
