ON THE PLAIN OF SNAKES (MEXICO) (PB)

Nogales is a border town caught between Mexico and the United States of America. A forty-foot steel fence runs through its centre, separating the prosperous US side from the impoverished Mexican side. It is a fascinating site of tension as the town fills with hopeful border crossers and the deportees who have been caught and brought back. And it is here that Paul Theroux will begin his journey into the culturally rich but troubled heart of modern Mexico. Attending local language and culinary schools, driving through the country and meeting its people, Paul Theroux gets under the skin of Mexico.