Luis Zapata born 27 April 1951
Luis Zapata is Mexico's most prominent gay author. He rose to popularity in the 1970s with books about the youth subculture of Mexico City. His novels examine the connection between daily life and the popular culture of radio, television, and film.
Born into an upper middle-class family in rural Mexico, Zapata escaped the restrictions of his background by losing himself in the cinema. Popular culture, cinema, melodrama and soap opera have all played a significant influence on his writing. Unusually for a Mexican writer, most of his novels, and stories feature gay and bisexual characters prominently. Where heterosexual characters appear they are usually within the context of the family and there is some element of hypocrisy and concealment, so the happiness of the normal social order is in some way seen as a smokescreen for more interesting goings on beneath the surface - as is the case with much popular drama and soap opera. His style is very heavily reliant on representing convincing dialogue and conversation - often between people of different social classes.
His work includes Hasta en las mejores familias (Even in the Best Families, 1975), Las aventuras, desventuras y sueños de Adonis García, el vampiro de la colonia Roma (1979), Melodrama (1983), En jirones (In Shreds, 1985) and La hermana secreta de Angélica María (The Secret Sister of Angelica María, 1989)