Castro regime 'offers the prospect of a social order which is more democratic, more just and more suited to our needs'. Within the tensions caused mainly by the United States's intolerance of alternative systems not far from Florida, he helped Graham Greene negotiate the freeing of two English bankers captured by guerrillas in El Salvador. He tells Mendoza that he himself lacks those necessary elements to assume political power—'vocation, background, decisiveness'—which he can use as a writer. His friendships with Castro and Mitterand both 'began through literature ^ 1. John Brenkman, 'Deconstruction and the Social Text, Social Text No. 1, Winter 1979, Madison, pp. 186-8; G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, New York, 1977. 2. Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza in conversation with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Fragrance of Guava. London, 1983, p. 30; Rita Guibert, Seven Voices, New York, 1972, p. 326. 3. Ronald De Feo, 'Murder into Myth', The Nation, May 14, 1983, New York, pp. 609-10. 4. Herbert Marcuse,^ Essay on Liberation, London, 1969, p. 10. 5. Mendoza, op. cit., p. 108; see also Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, New York, 1961, pp. 80-2. 6. Don DeLillo, 'American Blood', Rolling Stone, December 8, 1983, New York. 7. Mendoza, op. cit, p. 108. 8. Luis Bunuel, My Last Breath, London, 1984, pp. 206-8. 9. Mendoza, op. cit, p. 86. 10. Ibid., p. 88. 11 (bid., p. 108 12. Quoted by K.S. Karol, Introduction to Fidel Castro : History Will Absolve Me, London, 1968. 13. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method. London, 1975. 14. Felix Guattari, Molecular Revolution: Psychiatry and Politics. London, 1984, p. 179. 15. Russell Jacobi, Social Amnesia, Boston, 1975. 16. Mendoza, op. cit., p. 73. 17. Ibid., p. 73. 18. John Mander, Static Society : The Paradox of Latin America, London. 1969. 19. Selden Rodman, Tongues of Fallen Angels, New York, 1974, p. 133. 20. Augusto Beal, Theatre of the Oppressed, London, 1979, p. x. 21. Guibert, op. cit., pp. 329-35. 22. Tom Buckley, Violent Neighbours: El Salvador, Central America and the United States, New York, 1984. .23. Mendoza, op. cit., p. 88. 24. Jacobi, op. cit., pp. 4-5. 25. Rodriguez Monegal, The New Latin American Novelists', Tri-Quarterly, Nos. 13/14, Fall-Winter, 1968-9, Illinois, p. 26. 26. Mander, op. cit., pp. 131-48. 27. Mendoza, op. cit. p. 10. Journal of Arts and Ideas 35