Paco Ignacio Taibo II. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Someone had told Paco Ignacio Taibo II that writing comic strips was beneath an author. Paco, after all, is one of the best-known contemporary authors in Latin America and though “venerated” is a description the Mexican would heartily scoff at, he does enjoy a huge fan following in the Spanish-speaking world. “That is exactly why I took it up,” the burly man smiles mischievously from under his bushy moustache.

Soon, therefore, will be born from his pen a new avatar of a familiar superhero — a gay Batman. “I am doing it for Warner Comics but they don’t know the plot,” he laughs, lounging on a sofa, hours after landing in Calcutta.

“I love to be shocked,” he says, in reaction to the Book Fair being called off. He also loves to shock. In his youth, he “made horoscopes”. “When the magazine discovered I didn’t believe in it, they threw me out.”

This is the much-rewarded biographer of revolutionaries Che Guevara and Pancho Villa, who also happens to be a best-selling detective fiction writer.

“I was 18 when Che died. He was my hero.” Taibo points to the collection of Che’s favourite poetry he has published. “In his last year in Bolivia when people thought he was writing his diary, he was also copying his favourite poems. He had lost 20 friends in five months in the ugly campaign. And he was copying romantic poetry,” his voice quivers reflecting on his hero’s plight, hounded by the Bolivian Army and the CIA.

“He could have remained as the agriculture minister of Cuba.”

But then Che would not have risen to this cult status just as sticking to history would not have suited Taibo. “When I am tired of facts I go to fiction and vice versa. Nobody can label me,” he grins.

His imagination, as a child, had been fired by the adventures of Sandokan, a Malaysian prince who fought the British Empire in mid-18th Century, written by Italian author Emilio Salgari.

“Salgari never stepped out of Turin and was guided by bad encyclopaedia. One of his tales was based in Calcutta and featured a tiger-chaser. That is the misinformation I carry of the city,” says the creator of the detective, Hector Belascoaran Shayne, who has been translated in 30 countries.

Taibo also reintroduced the revolutionary, MN Roy, to Mexico. “He had united the socialist groups after the Mexican revolution but is remembered by few now. There is a chapter on him in my history of the communist party of Mexico.”

When the 59-year-old was invited to Calcutta, he was warned of chaos. “But nothing beats Mexico City. You are amateurs,” he laughs.

He knows. For he still travels by public transport at home. “I will never buy a car. I love observing people.”