Taibo has lived in Mexico City since the age of 9, when in 1958 his family fled from Spain to escape the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Taibo II is an intellectual, historian, professor, journalist, social activist, union organizer, and world-renowned writer. Widely known for his policial novels, he is considered the founder of the neopolicial genre in Latin America and is the president of the International Association of Political Writers. One of the most prolific writers in Mexico today, over 500 editions of his 51 books have been published in 29 countries and over a dozen languages, and include novels, narrative, historical essays, chronicles, and poetry. Some of PIT's novels have been mentioned among the "Books of the Year" by The New York Times, Le Monde, and the Los Angeles Times. He has received numerous awards including the Grijalbo, the Planeta/Joaquin Mortiz in 1992, the Dashiell Hammett three times for his policial novels, and the 813 for the best police novel published in France. His biography of Ernesto "Che" Guevara has sold over half a million copies around the world and won the 1998 Bancarella Book of the Year award in Italy. PIT's readership has developed into a cult following. Once when he gave a talk about Mexican Independence hero Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico City, his presentation turned into a rally. His readers consider him their friend and when his presentations are over, people approach him to give him gifts such as cigarettes, apples, and sodas. A socially and politically conscious writer, PIT's writings respond to and speak of the social pressures he experienced as a young man and allow him to tell what's behind every criminal story: corruption and repression of the political system in Mexico. A militant and veteran of the 1968 student movement in Mexico, his book 68 was inspired by the events of that year and direct personal experience, it tells the story of the movement including the Tlatelolco massacre of student protesters in Mexico City by government troops: at the La Plaza de las Tres Culturas, thousands of people were arrested, hundreds killed, and hundreds are still missing. To date nobody has been held accountable for these crimes. Among PIT's most popular works is a series of detective novels, written against the prevailing bourgeois state in Mexico in the last few decades of the 20th century, with the protagonist, Mexican Private Investigator Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, who was introduced in the novelDías de combate. PIT wrote eight more novels with this character. Other novels include: Cuatro manos ; Sombra de la sombra ; Amorosos fantasmas; and Temporada de Zopilotes: Una historia narrativa sobre la Decena Trágica' and, the last of the series, Muertos incómodos'', co-authored with Subcomandante Marcos. PIT organizes the "Semana Negra", a crime fiction festival held every year in his birth city ofGijón in Spain.
