Healing is possible in books: Amanda Lalena Escalante

▲ Amanda Lalena's first published book is the short story Thirteen Cans of Tuna. Here, the queen of anarcumbia speaks with this newspaper. Photo by Germán Canseco

Alondra Flores Soto

La Jornada Newspaper, Sunday, June 1, 2025, p. 2

Amanda Lalena Escalante couldn't bear any more of a challenge, which she fulfilled with the release of her autobiographical book , Un día contaré esta historia (Un día contaré esta historia, Grijalbo). Better known as Amandititita, the singer and songwriter writes about the nest threaded by death that began with the death of her father, musician Rockdrigo González, in the 1985 earthquake when she was 6 years old. It's a book that seeks to lead us toward light and reconciliation with our identity.

Her name is Amanda, after a Víctor Jara song, and Lalena, after a Donovan song. However, she stands out worldwide as Amandititita, who sings Metrosexual and La Matavijitas to the rhythm of cumbia.

“Most people in this society are attracted to people who have money, beauty, or fame, but there are other beings who search for something, and they found me. I am the result of many people who saw in me a possibility for it to be built.

I feel like if I hadn't created this book, I wouldn't have the opportunity to write new stories. It was a promise I had made to myself, a promise the universe had made , she says, sitting in an armchair at Penguin Random House. I'm a person who saved my life for books. So, I had to write this story .

Her words reveal a complex life and a difficult path. At 45, she jokes about wanting to have a boring existence. Standing in front of the rubble of the building where her father died, in the Juárez neighborhood, she marks her arrival in Mexico City from her native Tampico. A mother swept away by the shadow of love and who drank herself to the point of collapse. Wandering without a home or money, not knowing where they would spend the night.

Independence, at a very young age, without resources, but on the path of music and writing, which would come with a battle with alcoholism, are part of 259 pages of a woman who opens her most intimate thoughts and memories, some filled with sadness and fear, others luminous, which transformed her into the person who sits in the interview with the book in her hands.

That's why I'm here, that's why these things happen to me, because they don't destroy me; they give me peace. They give me something to connect with , he says.

The Amanda who sings is completely different from the one who writes. The truth is, Amandititita helps me survive, because she has this voice that denounces injustice; she fears nothing . On the other hand, there's Lalena, who has this whole life story; she's always very attached to spirituality and the search for forgiveness, to compassion for others .

Dressed in oversized, diva-like sunglasses, with bold lipstick, glamorous, and in a good mood, she talks about her lesser-known side as a writer, which was one of her first impulses as a child. In 2015, she published the short story collection "Thirteen Cans of Tuna" (Plaza y Janés).

My encounter with music was much more dazzling and dazzling , he reveals. Because in a way, I was born there, in music. I have the utmost respect for it; I love making music, being part of the industry, but it is in books that I find the possibility of human health .

The queen of anarcumbia emphasizes: Music is fun, it's dancing, it gives me the chance to dress up. If I didn't make music, I wouldn't be able to buy glasses and walk around at night with sunglasses. For a long time, it paid my rent .

In his songs, which are satirical and socially charged, he tries to create short stories that can be listened to. For me, music will always be that joy, but it's not necessarily the love of my life .

A few weeks ago, she performed in León, Guanajuato, and was heavily criticized on social media for singing while sitting down and for her physical appearance.

The fight against stereotypes and discrimination has been a constant throughout her rise to fame since 2006 with the success of La muy muy. On the subject, she opines: "The reason they won't stop judging my physique is because they don't read.

“People who judge are illiterate. And I say this in all seriousness, because I just published this book with this publisher, and some newspapers prefer to give a piece of the story to someone who gives their opinion on TikTok.

I've always been very critical of classism. And the issue isn't that it's being done to me, because I have a very beautiful life, one where love is abundant, where I have many fans, and many people love me. My life is a reality filled with light, but this problem is reflected in teenagers who are experiencing suicidal thoughts and who write to me on my social media about bullying.

Amanda Lalena chose the side of love. One day, she finally told that story. One day, she looked up at the light in heaven and felt proud of who she is.

Stories are the most beautiful thing to me. I'll find a way to continue telling them through music, podcasts, or books.

Daniel López Aguilar

La Jornada Newspaper, Sunday, June 1, 2025, p. 3

Yesterday, amid the murmur of traffic on Insurgentes Sur Avenue and the stillness of the capital's midday rush hour, a new visual language emerged at the corner of Yucatán: more than 30 artists transformed an old parking lot wall into an open-air gallery that raised their voices against the genocide of the Palestinian people.

The brush became a political act and color, a form of shared mourning.

This isn't the first time this surface has served as a canvas for outrage: previously, it served as a memorial for the disappeared, a tribute to murdered women, and an echo of invisible migrants. This time, it once again spoke of the barbarity that has enveloped Palestine in pain.

“We are here because the world hurts us ,” read the poster calling for action. On it, the organizers, Gabriel Macotela and Demián Flores, shared the motivation behind this action: “We are distressed by what is happening in the world… the horror in Ukraine, the tragedy of Central American migrants, and what the Israeli army is doing in Palestine. This cannot continue.”

It is unjustifiable

The walls, divided into segments, were filled with lines: faces covered with scarves, children with eyes wide open in fear, fractured maps, crosses symbolizing absences, and breathtaking phrases. One quoted French Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux: "It is unjustifiable ," part of the manifesto signed by more than 700 writers condemning the massacre in Gaza.

In an interview with La Jornada, Gabriel Macotela, a leading figure in Mexican art, commented: "We've intervened in this wall before, always for urgent reasons. Today, we are called to extermination. What the Israeli army is doing is not defense, but a massacre. It's not about religion or flags; it's a matter of humanity, ethics, and nonviolence ."

He added that his initiative emerged as a collective and spontaneous act of bringing together creators who sought to express, through art, the urgency of stopping this unequal war. For us, as creators, it's an internal dialogue that expresses ethics, human values, and the need for peace in a world plagued by fanaticism and inequality .

Screamer , present

Demián Flores painted one of the most moving works of the cultural event. It depicts the face of the artist and activist Antonio Ortiz Gritón, who died last December. He is surrounded by the colors of the Palestinian flag and the phrase: Free Palestine . His piece, "Palestinian Gritón," is a double tribute: to his absent friend and to the bombed people.

“El Gritón was always with us in these struggles. He's no longer here physically, but his presence continues to mark us. His voice is on these walls,” he said, moved.

▲ Master Macotela (top image) and Demián Flores (above) during the creation of their pieces on the walls that converge on Insurgentes Sur and Yucatán streets. Photo by Jair Cabrera Torres

We don't want any more wars. Not here, not anywhere. Not any more mass graves, not any more homeless children. This is our way of raising our voices.

Mazatec painter Filogonio García Calixto, known as Fil Calixto, presented a creation composed of black crosses on white faces. The cross is a stop. No more death. No more suffering. As artists, we don't have weapons, but we do have a voice. This is our way of resisting .

Among the many works that emerged along the wall, a poem by the writer Salem Al-Naffar, who was killed along with his family in an airstrike in Gaza in December 2023, also stood out. Its text, translated and painted on the wall, read: Knives may eat what remains of my ribs, machines may crush what remains of the stones, but life will come because that is its way, to create life even for us .

Another segment was dedicated to Yaqeen Hammad, a child killed during an Israeli bombing raid. Her name was written in red, along with the phrase: "Disputed territories are always the bodies of girls, boys, the elderly, and women... Free Gaza, stop the genocide!"

Among the still-fresh sketches was artist Teresa Barrera, who decided to join the action after seeing the call for entries on social media.

We cannot be indifferent to the excessive impunity and power of an illegitimate state, which is occupying a territory that is not its own and, in full view of the world, eliminating the inhabitants of that place. We cannot act as if nothing is happening , he noted.

Her performance is an allegory of freedom: a Palestinian girl wearing traditional clothing in shades of black, white, and red, waving her country's flag.

I would like them to appreciate the image, first stop and then ask themselves why it's here, why it's carrying that flag. I would like them to investigate, to find out what's happening there, because if this happens to them, it could happen to us too , Barrera explained.

In times of war and inequality, our tool is art. We are not armed, but we do have a voice, and this is our way of drawing attention to a genocide that is happening in real time.

The sun helped the vinyl to adhere to the concrete.

Around four in the afternoon, a light drizzle began to fall on the images, but the drops did not erase the message, they underlined it: Gaza hurts, and art does not remain silent .

Daniel López Aguilar

La Jornada Newspaper, Sunday, June 1, 2025, p. 4

The poet, chronicler and editor Hermann Bellinghausen (Mexico City, 1953) reveals another skin in his book Mester de alfarería, that of the artisan of stories who shapes unique, necessary and irregular narratives, like pieces of clay.

This collection, published by Ficticia in collaboration with the University of Veracruz, was presented yesterday at the Valle de Bravo Book Fair. Like someone patiently arranging slowly molded objects, the author offers stories that are eager to be read and heard.

I don't think I'll make porcelain, but I do make pottery , he said in an interview with La Jornada.

For decades, the journalist, activist, and tireless traveler has explored the lands of deep Mexico, the land of indigenous communities and rural areas, where social struggles and insurgent movements are not mere rhetorical figures but a part of everyday life.

Now, in this work, fiction takes center stage. The title alludes, of course, to the mester de clercía, although there are no monks or copyists here. What beats through these pages is a narrative pulse crafted by hand, as if each story were a figurine turned from the wheel.

The first, about a potter obsessed with his creations, serves as a key. It seemed like a metaphor for myself. I'm always writing something new, and sometimes that overwhelms you , added the director of the Ojarasca supplement, published monthly in this newspaper.

The book's cover reinforces this idea. It's a photograph taken by Bellinghausen himself at dawn in Xochimilco, in which he doesn't appear, but rather the captured moment: the mist, the light, the silence.

I experienced that moment alone, and it was as if something very ancient was speaking to me. It seemed like a perfect symbol for the book. That's what stories are like: they appear silently and floating , he recalled.

Unconcerned with literary trends and without following editorial manufacturing patterns, this collection of stories is the result of a long, if discreet, practice.

I always thought there were different kinds of storytellers. In my generation, the roles were very defined: poets, essayists, and storytellers. I never really knew where I fell. But I've always written fiction. It's just that I didn't bother to make it obvious , the author emphasized.

The stories move between evocation, chronicle, and invention, without settling entirely into any of them. The voice that runs through them doesn't impose itself; rather, it accompanies, like someone speaking without raising their voice too much.

Fiction sometimes tells the truth better than the truth itself. A reporter can't invent. A columnist, if lucky, allows himself certain liberties. But short stories give you more freedom: you can choose the tone, the pace, and even the facts.

In that freedom, he found respite during the most intense years of his journalistic work, especially in Chiapas.

▲ The writer believes that major publishing houses want you to have a profile, like rockers. And I don't have one . Photo by Sergio Hernández Vega

When reality hits you every day, writing fiction was a way to take a break. To tell lies, let's say. Or to create stories based on memories. Sometimes I don't know if a character is me, but I like to think that writing is also a way to get to know people.

Nature, always present in his life, permeates the texts naturally: the sea, the animals, the wind, the southern landscapes appear effortlessly.

I've spent a good part of my life outdoors. As a kid, I jumped into rivers and climbed hills. Then I lived in Chiapas for 20 years, much of that time in the jungle. That stays with you. The stories take place in the countryside because that's what I know. I've seen many wild animals. They fascinate me. It's only natural that they appear , the narrator stated.

This same connection extends to the indigenous peoples of Mexico, with whom Bellinghausen maintains a deep connection, both political and emotional. Their presence filters into the texts, sometimes symbolically; other times, with direct clarity.

"I don't usually explicitly refer to those experiences in my poetry, but I do in my fiction. If you write about the country, it eventually comes out. Even if it's fiction, even if it becomes something very poetic. You can't avoid it."

I can't speak for the people. But I can record what I've seen, what they've told me. My way of honoring them is not to explain them. Just to listen, to let the story flow.

And among these plots, humor also sneaks in, almost despite itself.

“I never try to be funny, and I don't think I am. But sometimes I laugh at what I write. Situations unfold a bit on their own. Sometimes I know where they're going; other times, the characters pull me along. I've had it happen that someone slips into another episode, as if they want to go back. Sometimes I do it on purpose; other times I don't even realize it until I reread it.”

Music also appears. Not as a theme, but as an atmosphere, as background noise that at times takes center stage. It enters as it enters life. I don't say: music's coming now, but if the moment calls for it, it's there.

However, Hermann Bellinghausen's relationship with the publishing market has been, to say the least, elusive.

I've never been given much credit. Most of my books have come out through universities or small publishers. I don't have any books in the industry. I tried, but it didn't work. The big labels want you to have a profile, like rockers. And I don't have one.

Far from regretting it, he accepts this condition calmly. "Perhaps it's better this way. If I had more visibility, I might not be able to write the way I do. I prefer to continue working like a potter: silently, without a mold, one piece at a time ," he concluded.

Alondra Flores Soto

La Jornada Newspaper, Sunday, June 1, 2025, p. 4

A field of giant sunflowers at the New York Botanical Garden is born to delight the senses, and the flowers that inspired Vincent van Gogh's paintings become a living canvas with the colorful brushstrokes of one of the world's most admired artists.

Van Gogh's Flowers is the title of the exhibition at this natural oasis in the American city. On certain nights, the swirling patterns of the Starry Night canvas will shine in the sky with an avant-garde drone show, the first of its kind at a New York cultural institution, the Bronx-based living museum announced.

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) is considered a Post-Impressionist painter. His explosion of color, symbolism, and passionate brushstrokes revolutionized the history of art.

He died unsuccessfully, mired in depression, poverty, and without selling his paintings. "The sadness will last forever ," were probably his last words, as he wrote to his brother Theo in a letter. Almost 135 years after his death in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, he is one of the most beloved and valued artists, not only in the art world but also in popular culture.

Painters understand nature and love it, and they teach us to see , Van Gogh wrote in his wonder and desire to capture it in his art. Flowers, fields, and trees are frequent motifs in the canvases he left for the world to admire. The sunflowers, painted numerous times, and the violet irises are some of his most famous paintings.

Founded in 1891, the New York Botanical Garden aims to connect people, plants, and the adventure of science, seeking to explore the joy, beauty, and respite of nature . Spring and summer are the best times to visit the 48 gardens spread across one square kilometer, as these are the seasons when the climate allows for a lush botanical variety. One of the centerpieces is the Haupt Conservatory, a wrought-iron greenhouse.

The installation, inspired by the Dutch painter's paintings, will be open from May 24 to October 26, in an explosion of floral colors. The Haupt Conservatory and its surroundings have been transformed this spring. Botanical arrangements and contemporary art pieces bloom to bring Van Gogh's world to life and allow visitors to enter the canvases.

With vibrant colors and blooming beauty at every turn, including a monumental sunflower field to stroll through, come connect with the natural world that inspired the artist's vision —it's the Botanical Garden's captivating invitation.

In a video released by the institution, Kelly Ivanoski, in charge of the Nolen greenhouses of this orchard, explains how they work to germinate and care for the plants in the exhibition, which will show many varieties of sunflowers and related species, we will have anything that evokes what Van Gogh showed in his art, the color and brightness .

In addition, the garden of the Arles hospital where he was interned, painted in 1889, is recreated with a representation of natural flowers and architectural elements.

Contemporary artists created pieces that integrate into the space, including a field of giant sunflower sculptures for visitors to wander through , designed by Cyril Lancelin. Sculptor Amie Jacobson and graphic artists Lee Baker and Catherine Borowski, founders of Graphic Rewilding, also collaborated to bring nature-inspired graphic murals into the public space, counterbalancing the urban landscape.