Sterling Bennett is a writer living in Guanajuato, an ancient mining capital in central Mexico.

My writing deepened and became much more prolific when I started to live in Mexico. Moving to another culture and learning a new language can do that. My first novel Playing for Pancho Villa speaks to this process. The main character, Frank Holloway, didn’t understand much about México either when he rode down into it in 1916 and got embroiled in the Revolution.

Comandante Ibarra, the name of my second novel, parallels my intensifying concern for human rights generally and the historical plight of the Yaqui Indians specifically around 1899. It is the story of a man taking extraordinary risks to defend the victims of two predatory governments, the U.S. and Mexico, and their mining companies. As author, I minimized any political risks, by cloaking my opinions in a historical novel and in a language that the vast majority of Mexicans do not read—English.

The third novel, The Queen of the Pánuco, completes the trilogy. I chose the geographical area and period in Mexico by literally laying a ruler across the country, starting with Guaymas on the Sea of Cortez in the west, cutting roughly through the middle of the country—Chihuahua City—and hitting the Gulf of Mexico at Tampico, trying to maintain a roughly sixteen-year space between novels. I settled for 1938 instead of 1932 as the period for the last novel. I knew nothing about Tampico but began digging, believing that a story can be found and told anywhere a writer looks. Especially in Mexico.

This site contains information about my published work, my essays and short stories, and my thoughts about writing and life.

Sterling Bennett’s Novels