Literal Magazine

Essay

The Twilight of the Intellectual Poet

El ocaso de los poetas intelectuales

Malva Flores

Apparently, what happened to us was the same thing that happens to those kids who really shine during adolescence, in high school. They’re so active and brilliant at that age…

Essay

Polemical Paz

Maarten van Delden

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…

Essay

Toward a Philosophy of the Present

Yvon Grenier

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…

Essay

Juan José Arreola: el ajedrez y el ping pong

Gilberto Prado Galán

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…

Essay

The Trojan Burritos and the Burden of History How Mexicans Are Coming Back for Their Lost Lands

Jay Mitsche Sepulveda

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…

Essay

On the Brown Atlantis and Mexican Intellectuals

De la Atlántida morena y los intelectuales mexicanos

Mauricio Tenorio Trillo

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…

Essay

Soy un león americano

Sealtiel Alatriste

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…

Essay

Introducción al método de Salvador Elizondo

Adolfo Castañón

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…

Essay

Pitol Is and Is Not Mexican: About El mago de Viena

Tanya Huntington

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…

Essay

How American Is It? Three Mexican Writers Look North

Marteen Van Delden

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…

Essay

Fin

Álvaro Enrigue

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…

Essay

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.…

Literature /literatura
Essay /ensayo

The Twilight of the Intellectual Poet

El ocaso de los poetas intelectuales

Polemical Paz

Toward a Philosophy of the Present

Juan José Arreola: el ajedrez y el ping pong

The Trojan Burritos and the Burden of History How Mexicans Are Coming Back for Their Lost Lands

On the Brown Atlantis and Mexican Intellectuals

De la Atlántida morena y los intelectuales mexicanos

Soy un león americano

Introducción al método de Salvador Elizondo

Pitol Is and Is Not Mexican: About El mago de Viena

How American Is It? Three Mexican Writers Look North

Fin

Zoé Valdés y la nostalgia