Monday, June 26, 2017

"Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla" A Longform Essay About the Mexican Literary Landscape and the Power of the Book

Get this essay about the Mexican literary landscape
 and the power of the book in KINDLE
My extra-crunchy long essay on the Mexican literary landscape and the power of the book is now available in Kindle.

Featured on the cover are my writing assistants, Uliberto Quetzalpugtl (aka Uls) and Washingtoniana Quetzalpugalotl (aka La Wash), both thinking profound thoughts... probably about the neighbor's cat. (As for books, they go for the corners.)

If you have been following my blog (in which case, bless you), you might be wondering, what in Timbuktu does this long essay on the Mexican literary landscape have to do with my current work in-progress on Far West Texas? Plenty, actually, starting with Cabeza de Vaca's gobsmackingly bizarre Informe. 

One of the several reasons I wrote this essay was to get my mind around the literary nuns of the baroque period in Mexico, the prime and cherished example is Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Another literary nun not mentioned in this essay, but who will appear in my book on Far West Texas, is María de Agreda, the Blue Lady. Much more about María de Agreda and her exterioridades anon.

Above all, I wrote "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla" for U.S. friends and colleagues who want to get past the heavily-retailed clichés about Mexico. This essay is at once my love letter to Mexico and a distillation of all that I have come to understand after 30 years of living here and over two decades of writing about Mexico and translating Mexican literature. I sincerely hope it will invite you to consider our southern neighbor in new ways and so, consider our own republic in new ways as well.

Read some excerpts from "Dispatch from the Sister Republic":

Lord Kingsborough's Antiquities of Mexico

What the Muse Sent Me About the Tenth Muse, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

> A Visit to the Casa de la Primera Imprenta de América, Mexico City

>> Get "Dispatch from the Sister Republic or, Papelito Habla" in in Kindle here.<<



#   #   #

Kindle edition

Also in the Kindle store you will find my memoir of yore, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico. Available as always in Kindle from Dancing Chiva, it will be for free in the Kindle storeyes, freefor two days later this month, July 22 and 23. So, I invite you to note those free days in your calendar, or shell out the clams. Or not. Or whatever. I invite you to read more about this book, reviews, and excerpts here. (The original hardcover was published by the University of Utah Press and the still in-print paperback is available from Milkweed Editions and all the usual online and independent booksellers.)



#   #   #


> Your comments are always very welcome. Write to me here.