Literal Magazine

Essay

Me fui de Comala porque mi padre vivía en Houston

Carlos Monsiváis

El siguiente texto es fragmento de una conferencia dictada por Monsiváis en Rice University el 4 de abril del 2007. La visita fue organizada por los departamentos de lenguas de…

Essay

El tañido de una flauta

Elizabeth Corral

Cuando el autor habla de El tañido de una flauta, la primera novela, señala las bases de su poética: “al escribirla establecí de modo tácito un compromiso con la escritura.…

Essay

Hisptinos: When The Blind Visionaries Strike Again

Jay Mitsche Sepulveda

At first glance, to call someone a “blind visionary” sounds like a gratuitous oxymoron. But this is so only until we look further into it. For someone to have good…

Essay

The Truth about Spain: American Hispanism, the Spanish Civil War, and the Crisis of Academic Legitimacy

Sebastiaan Faber

Almost from the moment of its outbreak in July 1936, the Spanish Civil War sparked intense public controversy in many different countries, not least in the United States. For some,…

Essay

George Steiner: La tristeza del pensamiento

Adolfo Castañón

Publicada en edición bilingüe, inglés y francés, Dix raisons (posibles) à la tristesse de la pensée es una obra de síntesis y reflexión y casi un testamento intelectual. El ensayo…

Essay

Latin America and the World at the Pre-9/11 Juncture

América Latina y el mundo en la coyuntura pre 9/11

Marc Zimmerman

In the memory of Eduard Delgado, the Director of Interarts, who lost his battle against cancer in 2002. In 1979, when I was the only yanqui working at the recently…

Essay

The New Conquest

Mark Lacy

As an American, Mexico is becoming familiar—not because of the migration of Mexican people to the United States, or the influence they have had on our culture, as we are…

Essay

Cine globalizado

Jean Meyer

La utopía capitalista occidental ha afirmado que el triunfo es suyo y que gobernará el mundo para rato, si no es que para siempre y que la cultura occidental es…

Essay

Democracia e imperio

Mauricio Márquez Murrieta

Desde el surgimiento como nación independiente y, más específicamente, desde su arribo a partir de la Segunda Guerra mundial como la mayor potencia, existe una escisión interna que atraviesa a…

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…