A Counterfeit Gringo's Take on Third World Poverty, Cultural Stagnation and Terrorism

About the Book

Though born an expatriate U.S. citizen in Nicaragua, the author’s hometown has an English name, Bluefields, and was the former capital of the onetime British protectorate called Mosquitia. Added to this exotic background, during his boyhood in the 1930’s Nicaragua was under U.S. Marine Occupation and the country’s entire Caribbean region was, in effect, an Anglo-American enclave, which led to his latino friends nicknaming him a gringo hechizo, or “Counterfeit Gringo.” This dual heritage, with its intimate experiencing of both American and Third World lifestyles, is what makes his comments on the current cultural clash between the Western and non-Western worlds, as outlined in these three brief works, an unique assessment of this most challenging and dangerous international conflict.

About the Author

Marc Rangel was born an expatriate U.S. citizen in Central America. At the time, Nicaragua was at the tail end of its Occupation by the U.S. Marines (1912 to 1933), and its entire Caribbean Coast was the remnant of a 250-year-old British protectorate known as Mosquitia, that was annexed by Nicaragua in 1894. Since “coming home” to the U.S. in 1950, he has lived in New York, where he has been a freelance writer; editor at several national magazines, including Us; editor at United Feature Syndicate (UFS) and later Special Assignments Correspondent in the U.S. and abroad; among other similar jobs. The Splendid Prize is one of a quartet of New York novels he has written.