297ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As a Bolivia-based journalist, Mark Cramer covered a variety
of subjects, from politics to sports, from indigenous customs
to international business.
Reviewed in dozens of publications, Cramer’s Funkytowns
USA: The Best Alternative, Eclectic, Irreverent & Visionary
Places scored a strange exacta when it was written up in
both scholarly journals on the one hand and Playboy and a
supermarket tabloid on the other. Funkytowns was featured
in a 10-minute spot on CNN and several rebellious profs have
used it for their university students. His Marshall Cavendish
books on Cuba and Mexico have also been used in settings
of higher education. His horse racing novel, Scared Money,
was republished in paperback in 2006.
Cramer’s lifelong avocation is living the daily life of
different countries. His heroes include writers Eduardo
Galeano (Uruguay) and Charles Bukowski (USA), jazz pianist
Thelonius Monk and the great Bolivian artist and defender
of justice Walter Solón Romero.
Horrifi ed by the receding glaciers in his favourite Bolivian
hiking territory and strip-mall banality of suburban America,
Cramer resolved to oppose the car-oil economy, not only
politically but through the symbolic act of doing all his
commuting by bicycle, rain or shine, winter or summer.
He currently lives in Paris, France with his wife and
son (who has done an internship in Bolivia). The Cramers
continue to maintain a second residence in La Paz.