Amexica

War Along the Borderline

Select a format:

Retailers:

Amazon Apple Books Google Play Hive Kobo

Summary

Between the interiors of the USA and Mexico lies a borderland: Amexica.

A terrain astride the world’s busiest frontier, teeming with migrants, factory workers, narcos, tourists, heroines and heroes, ranchers and rogues.

A border both porous and harsh, criss-crossed by a million people every day.

A warzone, where a grotesque pastiche of the globalised economy plays out in a tragedy of unfathomable violence as drug cartels and state forces face off.

Amexica is a journey through the cartels’ reach into the borderland’s daily life: through migrant camps, drug-smuggling ‘plazas’, rehab centres, sweatshop factories and the mass-murder of women. Updated with new material ten years on it paints an essential portrait of a country under siege - and testament to people who carry on regardless.

‘Previously, to understand the ruthlessness, ambition and impact of today's global criminals, you needed to read Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah and Misha Glenny's McMafia. Now, you also need to read Vulliamy's Amexica’ The Sunday Times

Reviews

Amexica is fascinating, infuriating and inspiring. Essential reading
Don Winslow, author of The Power of the Dog

About the author

Ed Vulliamy

Ed Vulliamy is a journalist and author who has worked more than thirty years as an international reporter with the Guardian and Observer. He won all the major awards in British journalism for his coverage of the Balkan wars between 1991-5, and discovered the gulag of concentration camps operated by the Bosnian Serbs in the Northwest Krajina region of Bosnia. As a result, he became the first reporter to testify at a war crimes tribunal since those at Nuremberg, giving evidence in nine trials at the ICTY in The Hague.

Vulliamy currently specialises in organised crime, narco-traffic and laundering of drug money, winning the 2013 Ryszard Kapusinski Prize for Literary Reportage for his book Amexica: War Along The Borderline. He was shortlisted for the same prize in 2016 for The War Is Dead Long Live the War, Bosnia: The Reckoning. He also writes about football, painting and music. His most recent publication is a memoir through music, When Words Fail: A Life With Music, War and Peace.

Learn More