The latest addition to my website is Valeria Luiselli‘s La historia de mis dientes (The Story of My Teeth). This is a superb post-modern novel about, well, teeth (amongst other things). Gustavo Sánchez Sánchez was born with four premature teeth. When his adult teeth grew, they were all pointing in different directions. After an uneventful … Read more
The latest addition to my website is José Agustín‘s De perfil [In Profile]. This novel, Agustín’s second, had considerable commercial and critical success in Mexico. It tells of four days in the life of the narrator, known only as X, a seventeen year old boy. We follow his relationship with his parents, particularly his father, … Read more
Every year at around this time, I focus on the literature of one particular country. Last year, it was Japan. 2015 it was Russia. 2014 it was Iceland. This year, as you can see from the title, it is Mexico. Three years ago, I wrote a blog post on contemporary Mexican literature. I intended to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jorge Ibargüengoitia‘s Dos crímenes (Two Crimes). This is another mocking satire of Mexican mores by Ibargüengoitia, this time somewhat subverting the conventional detective story and taking as its premise that, perhaps inevitably, that the dividing line between the police and the criminals is thin to non-existent. Marcos González … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jorge Ibargüengoitia‘s Los relámpagos de agosto (The Lightning of August), a very funny novel whcih ruthlessly satirises the memoirs of Mexican Civil War generals and the generals themselves. This novel is in the form of the memoirs of a fictitious Civil War general, called José Guadalupe Arroyo. He … Read more
This article by critic Geney Beltrán Félix (in Spanish), entitled Esto es lo que (no) hay: la literatura en el México del 2016 [This is what there is (not): literature in Mexico in 2016] is highly critical of the current state of literature in Mexico. He starts off by saying what is good: a long … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Luis Arturo Ramos‘ Este era un gato [This Was a Cat]. This novel, which has not been translated into English, tells the story of Roger Copeland. He was part of the US troops that occupied Veracruz, Mexico, in 1914. While there, he met a whore called Teresa Triana … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sergio Galindo‘s Otilia Rauda (Otilia’s Body). Despite the somewhat sensationalist (though not inaccurate) title, there is more to his book than sex, though sex does play a key part. Otilia Rauda is born in a small Mexican town. By the time she has reached puberty, it is clear … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sergio Galindo‘s Nudo [Knot]. This tells the story of a ménage à quatre (which later evolves into a ménage à cinq), though, despite this name (given by one of the characters), there is little bed-hopping. The main couple are Allan and Nan Brown. She is Canadian and had … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Tryno Maldonado‘s Teoría de las catástrofes [Catastrophe Theory. This novel is set in Oaxaca, Mexico, during the 2006 protests, arising from a teacher’s strike. Anselmo is a teacher of maths, who has come to Oaxaca and managed to find a few occasional and usually badly paid jobs teaching … Read more