¡Viva México!: Mexico remembers writer Carlos Monsivais, one year later

Mexico remembers writer Carlos Monsivais, one year later - latimes.com: "Carlos Monsivais, the celebrated Mexican author ... died a year ago Sunday at the age of 72....

Monsivais was remembered once again by friends and colleagues during a memorial on Sunday at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in downtown Mexico City (link in Spanish). The writer Elena Poniatowska, a lifelong friend, said at the memorial that in the past year Monsivais' death has been an ever-present void in the intellectual life of Mexico, "a horrible loss."

"Monsi went directly to the essence of things," she said. "His implacable fortitude, his critical intelligence ... transformed him into a defender of civil rights, into the intellectual who most knew and best knew how to protest the violation of human rights, and the citizen who best denounced the enormous ineptitude and rampant greed of the politicians who govern us."

Four of Monsivais' books have been published posthumously, a reminder of the writer's prolific work (link in Spanish). Yet he has barely been translated into English. Titles that are beloved by many Mexicans, up and down the class scale and across generations, are not well known in the United States or Europe."