Reading the world anew: Zapatista stories, the denial of singularity, and the creation of a plural world

This article examines the Zapatista political project for autonomy, and against coloniality and neo-liberalism, through two Zapatista stories, “La historia de los espejos” (“The Story of the Mirrors”, 1995) and “La historia de los otros” (“The Story of the Others”, 1998). It offers a close reading of these stories to show that the language of the Zapatista project emerges at the intersection of literary and political registers, enunciating a discourse of liberation and autonomy where the poetic and the political are intrinsically linked. In these stories, the recreation of the world is realized through two related processes: the critique and disavowal of a singular hegemonic reality and the repudiation of the “universality” of late capitalism. A parallel reconstruction foretells and mythologizes the emergence of a plural world, as captured through the axiom “a world where many worlds fit”.