A description from the belly of the beast that is MS-13: the first
book to reveal the inner workings of the most violent gang in the world,
written by an anthropologist who was there.
This short, intense book exposes life inside the largest, most violent
gang in the world, Mara Salvatrucha 13, more commonly known as MS-13.
Right in the heart of El Salvador's violent capital San Salvador,
anthropologist Juan José Martínez d´Aubuisson observes firsthand an
escalating cycle of violence between MS-13 and its sworn enemies from
Barrio 18 as it becomes a war fought on a professional scale with
grenades and machine guns. (Both gangs have their origins in Los
Angeles, interestingly enough, not Central America.)
For the better part of a year, d´Aubuisson was embedded in one of the
cells of MS-13, where he learned its moral codes, rules, legends, and
contradictions. His journey into the heart of the gang is guided by an
enigmatic character, El Destino, a veteran founder of the gang. After
many conversations with El Destino, the anthropologist begins to forge a
strange kind of friendship with him, and understands not only the origin
of the gang and its war with Barrio 18, but the deep-seated reasons for
the regional violence. The book culminates in one of the most violent
acts ever in an area that has seen more than its share: a full-scale
attack on a public bus with thirty-two passengers on board. Fourteen
people were killed and twenty-eight wounded.
Almost all the principal characters in this book end up dying: some are
killed in the war, while others fall to the state security forces. Those
that do escape the war are imprisoned, exiled or murdered by their own
gang. This is a true testimony of life inside a wild gang, in a
neighborhood governed by abandoned boys.
