Walking along the streets of Oaxaca, Mexico, I became mystified by the elaborate art and colors found on every street. It seemed that the Mexican state ran on creative musings and music, as every corner was lined with the state capital’s rich history and culture; courtesy of the many artists, dreamers and musicians that take up residency in its municipalities.

One of these artists is Víctor Armando Cruz Chávez: a poet born and raised in the neighborhood of Xochimilco in Oaxaca’s capital city, Oaxaca de Juárez. Ranging from his musical abilities to teaching language and culture, his writings reflect the images he saw growing up, as he aims to represent both himself and his country in the lines he writes.

Receiving his start as a musician, Victor Armando grew up in the heart of Oaxaca, where he was exposed to diverse influences and cultural representations. Over the past decades, he has explored writing in distinct facets, ranging from newspaper columns, speech writing, short stories and most recently, poetry. He is the recipient of various literary awards, including El Premio Nacional de Cuento Benemérito de América and the international recognition, El Premio de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. His published portfolio includes: Estaciones sobre la piedra dormida, La tinta y el dédalo, Obsesiones del escribano, Los hijos del caos, Juntar memorias, crónicas del barrio de Santo Tomás Xochimilco and Vals profano. His newest book, Ciudad y zozobra, was released this past August 1, 2025. When he’s not writing, he can be found teaching culture and writing at la Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca.

Interviewer How did you begin as a writer?

Victor Armandoe It runs in my family. My ancestor, my great-grandfather, was a poet and a musician. As such, I’ve been a musician since I was little. I studied music and dedicated many years to playing music on my guitar, including being in a band. I studied art in Mexico, and during my bachelor’s degree in the arts and humanities, we had to read a lot, and these readings became very, very important for me. I discovered another world, and by beginning to read books, I began to understand that writing was a part of me. From there, I began writing poems and later on, short stories.

Interviewer Is writing popular in Oaxaca?

Victor Armando I am part of a generation. Oaxaca has a lot of teachers who studied at the University of Mexico and then give workshops in Mexico. There is a culture surrounding writing workshops here in the city, where teachers come to teach poetry techniques, including how to analyze poems, how to write a story, how to analyze something from the technical point of view of the narrator. Really, how to understand everything that encompasses the structure of a literary text.

I published my first book when I was 21 years old, a book of poetry, and after that, I published another book of poetry. I discovered the genre of short story writing after that, and I found it very, very fascinating. I began to also write books of short stories. I have various volumes of stories, and I have the luck, the fortune, that my work has been published by universities.

I’ve won international prizes. For example, there is a very important literary prize in Mexico that is called El Premio de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Sor Juana has a big cultural relevance in Mexico since she was one of the first intellectual women of the 1640s. You should study up on her life; her life will teach you a lot about the history of Latin America, and really about Mexico as well.

Interviewer Tell me about your published works.

Victor Armando As of now, I have eight published books of poetry. I have also written a few novellas, but I am still in the process of improving them and they need some work. I would say that those are the biggest developments from my work as a writer. I have also worked in the government for over 30 years, in different sectors. I have also worked a lot in the world of books for the government of Oaxaca, including working as the coordinator for editorial projects.

Interviewer What sorts of editorial projects are you a part of?

Victor Armando I am in charge of processing the works of other writers. I have worked in multiple independent presses, alongside working for the Oaxacan government. I know the entire editing process, from how to design a book until it attains cultural relevance to how to distribute it. All of that is a part of who I am as a writer.

Interviewer And so, are you from Oaxaca de Juárez originally?

Victor Armando I am from a traditional neighborhood that you perhaps know about, it’s called Xochimilco. Do you know of it?

Interviewer Yes! I have walked through it during my study abroad experience here.

Victor Armando Well, I’m from that neighborhood. I was born there. My family line dates back to it, and in a way, I am its historian. In fact, I even have a book of investigation about Xochimilco. Long ago, it was just a town, and it wasn’t yet part of the city of Oaxaca, but over time, as the city grew it was incorporated into it. I still live there, and so does my family. They still have a bread shop there, and in many ways, that was my world for a long time.

Interviewer How about your job as a teacher?

Victor Armando I also work as a teacher, and teach about areas such as Mexican Literature, the Literature of Latin America, Culture and Civilization, and Mexican Cinema. I have been overseeing the world of culture since I was very young; culture and civilization are my world, and actually, I even studied to achieve a license in culture at university. It is part of my life. Do you have any other questions?

Interviewer Can we go back to your time as an editor? Did it incorporate any type of newspaper writing?

Victor Armando Yes. I am as much an editor as I am a writer. I worked for many newspapers in Oaxaca…I am currently inactive, meaning I am not working on any media for publication. However, when I was editor, my eyes would pass over all the sections of the newspaper, including the section on the economy, the section on culture, the section on law enforcement and security and the section on sports; I had to correct everything and revise the content. I have also worked in the world of politics, working for the government regarding the speeches of the governors of Oaxaca.

Interviewer Wow. And what is your biggest takeaway from all your experiences?

Victor Armando Everything depends on the moment in which you live. For example, my newest book, Ciudad y zozobra, is being presented and published on the 1st of August. I just had the chance to meet ‘her’. She came out of print a few days ago. It’s a book on poetry; I find that after lots of time, I always come back to poetry. It’s necessary. The book will express many things. I am an ecologist and I love nature a lot. Hence, since I see that we are in a very difficult place right now concerning the planet, I need poetry as a tool to express part of my vision towards the world.

We have also just finished passing something very, very tremendous for humanity: the COVID pandemic. Part of my book is talking about the COVID pandemic; it’s an analysis from the point of view of poetry. What was it like for us to live in the Pandemic? We all had someone dear to us who passed away. You had someone dear to you who passed away in the pandemic, right? [Interviewer nods] I did as well. So, yes, a bit of it is that it connects the memory about this part of history…

Interviewer Tell me more about your book.

Victor Armando Well, as I said, it’s called Ciudad y zozobra. The use of zozobra, if you catch the meaning, is like an unbalancing, to not be at peace, something that causes a bad sensation. That is a zozobra.

Interviewer And why did you choose this title?

Victor Armando Because the main focus is the city, the metropolis where we live. Our streets, the contamination, the hidden world that we don’t see. That underneath our streets, the water is dirty, contaminated…There is a world that we do not understand, a world that we do not see. My poetry tries to explore these concepts in my book.

And zozobra, because the city can also be a labyrinth where we get lost, where there is death. The city contains horrible events concerning safety: there is thievery and poverty. And so, in this book, I’m talking about a vision of the city, not a romantic one, but a very realistic one, an approach to the city where we’re observing the ugly side of humanity.

Interviewer Tell me more about your experiences writing poetry.

Victor Armando I think that poetry can also be a weapon. It is a language with which we can speak about what’s wrong with humanity. And here is a very important thing. A Chilean poet named Jorge Teillier said that poetry is something we have to live through from an aesthetic point of view. Language is communication; it is beauty in a sense, but it is also something we must see from an ethical and moral perspective.

I’m sure you know that poetry has been used over the years by many different causes. For example, feminist poetry. Sor Juana, for instance, wrote feminist poetry. There are many female writers who have used poetry to start feminist dialogue. Poetry also has a social context, especially in Latin America. Right now, as you’re in a class about activism, you are learning a lot about Latin American poets, such as Ernesto Cardenal and Pablo Neruda. These poets have used poetry as a song of social activism, where they seek to transform reality through the lens of language. They formed part of a historical time, where they were leftist figures. We do not know if their dreams on the political level were fulfilled, possibly not, but regardless, poetry was an important weapon for them to transform social consciousness.

Interviewer And how does this connect back to your own works on nature and ‘the city’?

Victor Armando If we focus on the Spanish Civil War…there we have lots of poets who spoke about this social transformation I mentioned, this fight about the collective dreams of the people. And if poetry has the ability to have us reflect on social change…to talk about feminism, then it is probable that it is also very useful to talk about nature, and our reasoning behind harming nature, which ties into the ethical lens of poetry.

The central idea of nature in the cities is that we are losing it. For instance, in Oaxaca, we have a historic river called Atoyac. It is a symbol for our cities. As of 50 years ago, it was a fairly clean river, but now it is a ‘river of death’. And when I call it a ‘river of death’, I call it this because now many of the women who go missing in Oaxaca are found dead there. It is now a tainted river that represents the worst part of the city.

My book is a little strange because the reader is going to discover a discussion that is a bit dark, a bit uneasy, but I think it is necessary that we use poetry to start a dialogue about our current reality.

Interviewer Tell me more about your experiences publishing your writing.

Victor Armando You know, as of a few years ago, I became very happy when I published a book. I felt very happy, very content, and it was a moment to celebrate with mezcal. Now, I simply feel that it is a mission, a goal within myself; not with the rest of society, not with the world, but myself. It is like fulfilling a personal goal; the rest of the world does not matter as much to me.

I do not live off of selling books. I have two other jobs. I work with the government, writing speeches for governors, and also teaching classes. And so, my first objective when writing is not to sell books, but simply to keep writing. I have many projects; I have a book that I just finished writing that is sitting on my computer. It’s a narrative featuring short stories on a variety of topics. I try to explore different areas of life.

Interviewer What other books have you published?

Victor Armando The book that received El Premio de Sor Juana, titled Los hijos del caos, is about suicide. I focus on the lives of many suicidal writers, and I speak a little about their stories and other fantastical elements. For example, Sylvia Plath, a North American poet, Virginia Woolf and Alejandra Pizarnik from Argentina.

Interviewer Do you think that, although you do not speak directly about Oaxaca, that Oaxaca still influences you?

Victor Armando Yes, absolutely. Oaxaca is in my language, my expression. And I do have some stories that have to do profoundly with Oaxaca. I like to say that my work is divided into two: Oaxaca, and then other worlds, other characters, other continents, other sceneries and other topics.

Interviewer What are some of your biggest inspirations as a writer?

Victor Armando I definitely enjoy the fantasy genre. I find a lot of inspiration, both as a writer and reader, from North American writers, like Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Hemingway, and yes, many other North American writers that inspire me.

Interviewer Talk to me about the connection between North American writing and Latin American writing.

Victor Armando Well, first we must recall that the North American writers of the 19th and 20th centuries have been a big influence on the writing of Latin American authors. William Faulkner was a big inspiration for authors such as Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo and Gabriel García Márquez; whoever aspires to write, for life or as a vocation, must read North American literature.

For example, Jorge Luis Borges, a great Argentinian writer whom I admire a lot, loved the writings of Melville and of many other North American writers. And there is another author I love a lot, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, and here I should mention that the genre of horror has also been one of my greatest inspirations and was also a great influence. And of course, beyond the writers from the United States, there are also many British writers. Oscar Wilde and Robert Stevenson come to my mind; writers who have been very important influences for us.

Interviewer Is there anything else you think readers should know about you?

Victor Armando I think it is important for people, such as you, who speak the English language, to come and realize that Oaxaca also has important literature. We have indigenous languages, and there are indigenous poets here who also have their own challenges, and who reads them? There is a strong indigenous literature in Oaxaca. I write in Spanish, but of course, you have indigenous writers such as Natalia Toledo. Do you know who Francisco Toledo is?

Interviewer I’ve heard the name, but nothing in detail.

Victor Armando Well, Francisco Toledo was a great, great painter who did a lot for the culture of Oaxaca. He is an icon regarding the defense of Oaxacan culture. He was a cultural activist. He had a lot of power — not political and economic power — but the power of communication; to convince people that we needed to protect our cultural heritage. And he has a daughter named Natalia Toledo who writes in the indigenous language of Zapotec.

And there are many women and men here who write in the indigenous languages of Oaxaca. And it’s important to understand them. How do we express Oaxaca, how do we define Oaxaca through our literature?

Interviewer Do you have an explanation behind why Oaxaca is a magnet for all these writers?

Victor Armando I think it’s because we are a Mexican state that contradicts itself. We have the most biodiversity in the country, the grand majority of different species of animals, a very rich natural presence, 16 indigenous communities, great traditions, a beautiful city and cultural regions that are on a very high anthropological level. However, Oaxaca is also a very poor state. We are within the three poorest states in the country, alongside Guerrero and Chiapas. And this poverty has caused the state of Oaxaca to be a socially turbulent place. We have a lot of political instability here, with a lot of violence, because our communities are in disagreement. If you walk along the streets of the city, you will see that every mural of graffiti is a space where people express themselves. And what do they express? Rage, anger, resentment, about poverty, inequality and injustice.

And I think that you arrived at the perfect time to analyze social activism, because right now there is a lot of activism because of the poverty we’re experiencing. We have a very beautiful city, but if you visit the outskirts of Oaxaca, you will see a lot of poverty. This is the sun and the shadow of Oaxaca. You will observe vibrant traditions such as the Guelaguetza, which is a show to a certain extent, but just like we have this rich cultural representation, we have other contrasts as well.

I think that this is the light of literature and the arts, this cultural expression. There is a popular phrase from the English poet, Malcolm Lowry: ‘Oaxaca, there is no sadder word’. When the author visited Oaxaca, he endured many things: Mezcal, love and even jail. And I think that is the reason so many artists come to Oaxaca, to change their lives, to change their souls, to transform their vision of the world. That is what I hope readers take away from my words.