To discover what becomes of Mexicans who cross into the United States without a visa, Conover traveled and worked alongside them for more than a year. This is the chronicle of his journey.
“Ted Conover has written a book about the Mexican poor that is at once intimate and epic. Coyotes is travel literature, social protest, and affirmation. I can compare this book to the best of George Orwell’s journeys to the heart of poverty.” --Richard Rodriguez, author of Brown and Hunger of Memory
"Ted Conover lived the bizarre life of the Mexican illegals. Theirs is a subterrestrial world of high-wire tensions, of brutal police, of sinister smugglers -- coyotes. A devastating document, this one must be read." -- Leon Uris
The acclaimed author of Rolling Nowhere has taken another adventure, this time on the underground railway that operates across America's southern border. To discover what becomes of Mexicans who desperately slip into the United States, Ted Conover disguised himself as an illegal alien, walked across deserts, hid in orange orchards, waded through the Rio Grande, and cut life-threatening deals with tough-guy traffickers in human sweat. This electrifying account is the harrowing vision of a way of life no outsider has ever seen before.
Ted Conover is the author most recently of Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge, named one of The New Yorker’s best books of 2022. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, an account of his ten months spent working as a corrections officer at New York’s Sing Sing prison, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Conover’s other books include Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes, Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America’s Mexican Migrants, Whiteout: Lost in Aspen, The Routes of Man, and Immersion: A Writer’s Guide to Going Deep. He has written for publications including The New York Times Magazine, Outside, and Harper’s. Twice his work has been an answer on “Jeopardy!” He is now professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
View titles by Ted Conover
To discover what becomes of Mexicans who cross into the United States without a visa, Conover traveled and worked alongside them for more than a year. This is the chronicle of his journey.
“Ted Conover has written a book about the Mexican poor that is at once intimate and epic. Coyotes is travel literature, social protest, and affirmation. I can compare this book to the best of George Orwell’s journeys to the heart of poverty.” --Richard Rodriguez, author of Brown and Hunger of Memory
Reviews
"Ted Conover lived the bizarre life of the Mexican illegals. Theirs is a subterrestrial world of high-wire tensions, of brutal police, of sinister smugglers -- coyotes. A devastating document, this one must be read." -- Leon Uris
The acclaimed author of Rolling Nowhere has taken another adventure, this time on the underground railway that operates across America's southern border. To discover what becomes of Mexicans who desperately slip into the United States, Ted Conover disguised himself as an illegal alien, walked across deserts, hid in orange orchards, waded through the Rio Grande, and cut life-threatening deals with tough-guy traffickers in human sweat. This electrifying account is the harrowing vision of a way of life no outsider has ever seen before.
Ted Conover is the author most recently of Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge, named one of The New Yorker’s best books of 2022. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, an account of his ten months spent working as a corrections officer at New York’s Sing Sing prison, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Conover’s other books include Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes, Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America’s Mexican Migrants, Whiteout: Lost in Aspen, The Routes of Man, and Immersion: A Writer’s Guide to Going Deep. He has written for publications including The New York Times Magazine, Outside, and Harper’s. Twice his work has been an answer on “Jeopardy!” He is now professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
View titles by Ted Conover