Sergio González Rodríguez

Sergio González Rodríguez
Born	1950 Mexico City
Occupation	journalist, critic, essayist and screenwriter
Language	Spanish
Nationality	Mexican
Alma mater	National Autonomous University of Mexico
Years active	1993 to the present
Notable works	Huesos en el desierto
Website
www.fronterad.com/?q=blog/32

Sergio González Rodríguez (b. January 26, 1950) is a Mexican journalist and writer who is best known for his writings on the femicides in Ciudad Juárez in the 1990s to 2000s. The major publication from this work is Huesos en el desierto (Bones in the desert) which was published in 2002. González Rodríguez has also written novels, essays and screenplays for documentaries. His work has been recognized with several awards in Mexico and Spain.

Life

González Rodríguez was born in Mexico City in 1950. He studied modern literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico from 1978 to 1982.

Aside from his writing career he has also been a rock musician and currently lives in Mexico City.

Career

González Rodríguez has made his career as a critic, narrator, essayist, literary historian and scriptwriter.

After graduating, he worked at the Historical Studies Department of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia from 1985 to 1988. From 1990 to 1992, he was an assistant of the Exhibition Coordination of CONACULTA, working on a multimedia production called "Asamblea de ciudades, la Ciudad de México 1920–1950". His work in journalism includes editing at the the Estudio de Salvador Novo A.C. and at the Biblioteca de México magazine from 1993 to 2000, as well as serving as editor and photographer at the Luna Córnea magazine from 1992 to 2002. When the Reforma newspaper was founded in 1993, he joined as editor and columnist for both the regular paper and its cultural supplement, called El Ángel. He has also worked for La Jornada.

González Rodríguez is best known for his investigative work about the femicides in Ciudad Juarez in the 1990s and 2000s. He began as an investigative reporter, making his first trip to the area in 1995 for Reforma. His series of articles served as the basis for the book, Huesos en el desierto (Bones in the desert), published in 2002, which mixes reporting, essay and reflective writing. This work was a finalist at the Lettre Ulysses International Prize of Literary Reporting in Germany and was translated into Italian and French. This work influenced other writing on the topic, including a direct collaboration with writer Roberto Bolaño, who was writing the novel 2666 in the early 2000s as well. González Rodríguez blames the murders of the women on machismo and misogyny in Mexico. This examination of violence led to two other books that form a trilogy on modern violence, El hombre sin cabeza (Man without a head) and Campo de guerra, which examine drug-related violence and the role of international politics, respectively.

As a screenwriter, he wrote the for the television series “México, Siglo XX,” and a documentary called Nacional Dominical, which he also directed with Roberto Diego Ortega. In 1993 his script for the documentary Los bajos fondos, produced by UNAM, won first prize at the third Festival y Muestra Nacional de Televisión y Video at the Instituciones de Enseñanza Superior en México.

He is a post graduate professor at the Doctor José María Luis Mora Research Center, which is part of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Recognition

In 1993, he was a finalist at the Anagrama Essay Prize in Barcelona, Spain, with the work El centauro en el paisaje. This was followed in 1995 by the Fernando Benítez National Journalism Prize in Mexico for Mujer de table-dance.

The work Huesos en el desierto was a finalist at the LettreUlysses International Prize of Literary Reporting in Germany and received the Herralde Novel Prize in 2004.

El triángulo imperfecto (2003) was a finalist of the Antonin Artaud Prize for novels in Mexico.

In 2013, he won the Premio Casa América Catalunya a la Libertad de Expresión en Iberoamérica, . followed by the Anagarama Essay Prize for Campo de guerra in 2014.

The journalist’s work has been supported by grants from FONCA (1990–1991), two from the Rockefeller Foundation and from the history department of the Universidad Iberoamericana (1990–1999) .

He has been a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte of Mexico since 1996.

Publications

González Rodríguez has been a collaborator on twenty one books, as well as the Anales de Literature HIspanoamericana de la Universidad Complutense, Biblioteca de México, El Nacional Dominical, Ínsula (Spain), a supplement of the Siempre magazine called La Cultura en México, La Jornada Semanal, Letras Libres, Nexos, and the Revista Universidad de México.

His novels include El triángulo imperfecto (2003), El plan Schreber (2004), La pandilla cósmica (2005) and El vuelo (2008). In 2014, he published a novel called El artista adolescente que confundía el mundo con un cómic, which integrates elements of graphic novels and comics into both the literary style and the storyline. Other titles include the essays Los bajos fondos, el antro, la bohemia y el café (1988), El Centauro en el paisaje (1992), De sangre y de sol (2006) and El hombre sin cabeza (translated into French). He also edited Viajes y ensayos by Salvador Novo (1997).