Polemical Paz
Octavio Paz was no stranger to controversy. The target of often harsh attacks by his enemies—in particular for his political view— Paz did not shy away from engaging in robust…
Literature /literatura
Essay /ensayo
Toward a Philosophy of the Present
In his Nobel lecture, entitled “In Search of the Present,” Octavio Paz challenges us to find a new “philosophy of the present,” essentially by rediscovering some of the great…
Juan José Arreola: el ajedrez y el ping pong
El diccionario de la RAE dice que rizoma es un “tallo horizontal y subterráneo, como el del lirio común” (volumen II, p. 1979). Está en boga el pensamiento digresivo, el…
The Trojan Burritos and the Burden of History How Mexicans Are Coming Back for Their Lost Lands
You would be right, and the pun would be forgiven if, in trying to put a number on how many Mexican restaurants there are in New York City you were…
On the Brown Atlantis and Mexican Intellectuals
De la Atlántida morena y los intelectuales mexicanos
Translated to English by Tanya Huntington In 1940 Mexico was already a very different nation than in 1910, but its image remained crystallized, to such an extent that it has…
Soy un león americano
Soy el tercero, contando de izquierda a derecha. El de las barbas y bigote blanco, que con ese gesto tan fiero parece oligarca de la dictadura que tiene sojuzgado a…
Introducción al método de Salvador Elizondo
En marzo pasado falleció Salvador Elizondo, uno de los grandes de la literatura mexicana contemporánea. Nacido en México en 1932, es autor de Farabeuf (1965), obra fundamental para la literatura…
Pitol Is and Is Not Mexican: About El mago de Viena
Up until recently Sergio Pitol (Puebla, 1933) was one of the best-kept secrets in Mexican literature. However, the recent announcement that he has been awarded the Premio Cervantes—perhaps the most…
How American Is It? Three Mexican Writers Look North
Sometimes as model, more often as menace, the United States looms large in the Mexican literary imagination. Mexican writers who look north of the border have responded with a mixture…
Fin
Lo difícil es la primera hora: en parte porque hay que despertarse temprano en sábado para sacar las cosas a la calle y en parte porque nunca es deseable exponer…
Zoé Valdés y la nostalgia
En 1967 se publica la antología Aquí once cubanos cuentan (México, 1967), del crítico José Rodríguez Feo, fundador junto a Lezama Lima de la revista Orígenes, y luego, con Virgilio Piñera, de Ciclón.…
Invention of Love
La invención del amor
Traducción al español de Anahí Ramírez Alfaro Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. He is also Professor of Poetry at Columbia…
