What’s so funny about a dictator? Comedians-in-exile have ideas

(Photo by dusan jovic on Unsplash)

(NEW YORK TIMES) — Estefanía León, a young Venezuelan comedian, once wondered how she could keep making jokes amid so much tragedy.

It was 2017, and she was living in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, at the worst point in her country’s economic crisis. Protests convulsed the nation, while food shortages left millions hungry and hyperinflation erased savings overnight.

Her father, at the time very ill, would rise at three in the morning to line up to buy food before supplies ran out. Ms. Léon was working seven days a week but could not afford his medication.

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