Lili Wright’s “Dancing with the Tiger” at SMA’s Literary Sala

Lili Wright is traveling to the San Miguel to introduce us to her new book,Dancing with the Tiger, a page-turning thriller filled with romance, mystery, suspense, and history; a classic Mexican history adventure story, in the tradition of John Steinbeck or B. Traven or Malcolm Lowry. Wright’s book is set in our adopted country of Mexico, a land with a cultural landscape rich in its variety of cultures, languages, geography and people. The heroine, Anne Ramsey, travels to Mexico to find the fabled “death mask of Montezuma” in order to redeem her father’s reputation after the Metropolitan Museum of Art rejects his collection of masks as counterfeit. Anne faces off against others interested in the treasure — including a shady American expat collector, a ruthless narco boss, and a handsome artist who believes that Mexican treasures belong to, and in, Mexico.

During her many trips to Mexico, Lili Wright has lived with Mexican families, worked as a journalist, watched dancing tigers parade down streets, visited ghost towns, and started her own mask collection. Her essays and journalism have appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, Down East, and many other publications.