The Mexico City Reader (THE AMERICAS)

The Mexico City Reader (THE AMERICAS)

Ruben Gallo (Editor)
$65.00
Publication Date: August 30th, 2004
Publisher:
University of Wisconsin Press
ISBN:
9780299197100
Pages:
366

Description

    Mexico City is one of Latin America’s cultural capitals, and one of the most vibrant urban spaces in the world. The Mexico City Reader is an anthology of "Cronicas"—short, hybrid texts that are part literary essay, part urban reportage—about life in the capital. This is not the "City of Palaces" of yesteryear, but the vibrant, chaotic, anarchic urban space of the1980s and 1990s—the city of garbage mafias, necrophiliac artists, and kitschy millionaires.
    Like the visitor wandering through the city streets, the reader will be constantly surprised by the visions encountered in this mosaic of writings—a textual space brimming with life and crowded with flâneurs, flirtatious students, Indian dancers,
food vendors, fortune tellers, political activists, and peasant protesters.
    The essays included in this anthology were written by a panoply of writers, from well-known authors like Carlos Monsiváis and Jorge Ibagüengoitia to younger figures like Fabrizio Mejía Madrid and Juieta García González, all of whom are experienced practitioners of the city. The texts collected in this anthology are among the most striking examples of this concomitant "theory and practice" of Mexico City, that most delirious of megalopolises.

“[An] exciting literary journey . . .”—Carolyn Malloy, Multicultural Review

About the Author

Rubén Gallo is Assistant Professor of Latin American Literature in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures at Princeton University.

Praise for The Mexico City Reader (THE AMERICAS)

"In spite of its size, its proximity to the United States, and its extraordinarily vibrant cultural life, Mexico City remains almost invisible as a literary locale to North American readers who do not know Spanish. Rubén Gallo undertakes to fill this gap with his anthology of writings about the city, and he does so with great skill, insight, and verve."—Maarten van Delden, author of Carlos Fuentes, Mexico, and Modernity

"Gathered under topical headings such as The Metro, Eating and Drinking, Corruption and Bureaucracy, Gallo has chosen some of the most engaging and lively chronicles of [Mexico City]."—Jean Franco, author of The Decline and Fall of the Lettered City: Latin America and the Cold War

“A must-read for anyone interested in the social and cultural pulse of modern Mexico City.”—Clara Ricciardi, The Bloomsbury Review

Other Books in Series