Seminars and Symposia

 

First Stop in the New World
Mexico City: The Capital of the 21st Century

 

 

 David Lida

  Journalist, Author, Blogger

 

WHEN: Friday, October 9, 2009, 4:00PM

WHERE: The Graduate Center, Rooms 9206/9207

365 Fifth Avenue (@ 34th Street)

David Lida will discuss his most recent book First Stop in the New World, Mexico City: The Capital of the 21st Century (Penguin Group, 2009). First Stop in the New World offers a journalistic, anecdotal street-level panorama of Mexico City. The book highlights the place’s paradoxes – that it is home to the richest man in the world, but half of the population lives in poverty; that criminals and cops are difficult to distinguish; that consumerism is ostensibly shunned but outwardly embraced. It journeys through the realms of sex and crime, money and religion, politics and entertainment, art and soccer. While the book is based on a great deal of research, it is not about numbers or data. Rather Lida lets Mexico City’s citizens – known as chilangos – tell the story: from a notorious socialite to a glue-sniffing street urchin, from a dollar-a-dance bar girl to a kidnap negotiator, from a Procter & Gamble executive to a dervish who sells newspapers on the corner.

 

About the Speaker:
David Lida is an author and freelance journalist based in Mexico City. In the United States he has published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Interview, The Village Voice, Culture + Travel, Outside’s Go, and The Forward, among others. In Mexico, he has written for Reforma, Letras Libres, Gatopardo, Playboy and Día Siete. In addition to First Stop in the New World, he is also author of Las llaves de la ciudad.

http://davidlida.com/

 

 

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