Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction

by Álvaro Uribe (Editor), Cristina Rivera Garza

Many of these writers, and most of these stories, have never before appeared in English. Readers will meet an embalmed man positioned in front of the TV, a mariachi singer suffering from mediocrity, a man’s lifelong imaginary friend, and the town prostitute whose funeral draws a crowd from the highest rungs of the social ladder.

The writers that Mexican editor Álvaro Uribe selected for this volume are deeply engaged in the literary life of Mexico and include prominent editors, translators, columnists, professors, and even the young founder of a new publishing collective. Between them they have received dozens of prizes, from the Xavier Villaurrutia prize to Guggenheim fellowships and other international awards.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

529 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Caitlin Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first exposure to Mexican short fiction as I prep material for a course I'm teaching in the fall. While only a few of the stories will work in my course, I thoroughly enjoyed the remaining ones I read (I skipped two long ones knowing that, even if thematically appropriate are too long to use with high schoolers). The final story, "end of the world" was hauntingly beautiful, and the first story, "Lukin's bed" was such an interesting post feminist take on contemporary Mexican gender relations. Ill def be using that one.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mixed bag. Good intro to contemporary Mexican fiction and authors. Bilingual edition. Read them all in English. Now will re dip and read them in Spanish.

[Bonnie Brody · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology, edited by Alvaro Uribe, contains sixteen short stories by Mexican writers born after 1945. It is presented in chronological order with the youngest writer first and the oldest writer last. The left side page is in Spanish and the right-hand page is in English. I read the book in English as I'm not literate in Spanish.

The stories varied in their impact on me with some quite good and others just okay. I liked 'On the Death of the Author', about the last of the Yahi Indians. Ishi, a Yahi Indian wanders outside a California slaughterhouse. He is half-dead from hunger and tuberculosis. He ends up as a display in a San Francisco anthropology museum where he prefers living to his natural environment. The tragedies of his past are examined with great sensitivity and beauty.

'Questioning Samantha' is an unusual story. An eleven year-old girl gets caught having sex during recess in the girls' bathroom of her school. Her father, a widower, doesn't appear to take it at all seriously despite the fact that he is called away from his job by the principal to discuss the matter. He is more concerned about cleaning his dining room windows and getting a different job.

I really enjoyed 'True Friendship', a story about Weinstein and his one-sided friendship and obsession with a man that no one in his family has ever met. This 'friendship' goes on for forty years and Weinstein uses this friend as an excuse for any time he's late or messes up at home or at work. We begin to question whether this friend really exists.

In 'The Preservers', Marta asks her nephew Ignacio to embalm her dead husband Pablo after his death. Rather than bury him, she brings him home and sets him in the sewing room in front of the television where he can watch his favorite shows. When Ignacio's girlfriend, Marisa, gets too cozy with Pablo, the dynamics get skewed.

'Living Treasure' is a wonderful story. Amelie goes from France to Tekendogo in West Africa. She goes there to write about Tekendogo's literature for a French magazine. There, she meets Sangoule, a language teacher and musician, and falls in love. She tries working on her own novel to no avail. Her work on reporting about the literature of Tekendogo uncovers a great hoax. The country has what they refer to as 'living treasures', authors revered by the state. What they have to offer is not as it seems.

'Mariachi' is about a very successful Mariachi singer who hates his music. Accidentally, he gets roped into a role in a movie and becomes an instant sex symbol all over the world. As he says, "My fame is a very powerful drug. I need that which I hate."

The above are my favorite stories in this anthology though I enjoyed several others as well. I think that it must have been very difficult for Uribe to cull the writers down to sixteen. Mexico has a large number of writers and sixteen is just a drop in the bucket. However, the ones that he picked, show the country's literary merits.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories Read:
"Shere-Sade" - Rosa Beltram
"Living Treasure" - Enrique Serna
"Mariachi" - Juan Villoro
"The Ominous Phenomenon" - Daniel Sada


Surprisingly mediocre for a book that claims to examine contemporary Mexican fiction. Clearly there is a lot better stuff out there than the lot of the Mexico City intellectual tripe that burdens this book. In looking forward to reading the similarly designed en espanol volume called Grandes Hits from Editorial Almadia. That compilation contains some of the better writers from this book...and it looks good too, pretty much all of the Almadia stuff looks great. A vast improvement over the ugly crap Spanish language publishers like Alfaguara have always printed.



However, there are some good saving graces that made diving into this volume worthwhile.

Enrique Serna's transnational "Tesoro Viviente" makes for interesting reading, investigating sham literary movements in West Africa. However, I probably won't be struggling through anything else of his in Spanish anytime soon.

The real show stopper in this book though is Juan Villoro's "Mariachi" about the sexual mores of a Mariachi singer who suddenly finds himself the object of admiration when he gets into gay french soft porn or art movies or whatever. The character Gallito is kind of a sensitive badass who goes to a psychoanalyst and is terribly insecure about his kingmaker status. Oh, and it's a love story too?

As I sort of expected the Daniel Sada story was also really good. Roberto Bolano has named him as an influence and his harsh poetic descriptions of the Sonora seem to find their echos in at least a couple of Bolano books. Sada is from Mexicali and he kind of breathes life into the stillness, dust and decay of the deserts of la frontera Lots of tension, lots of heat. Nothing actually happens in the story but it manages to be greatly intriguing.

Anyway, the best reason to read this is that in some cases the only available English translations of some great authors appear in this book. Neither Daniel Sada or Juan Villoro have been translated that I know of. Presumably an English translation of Casi nunca will appear eventually, but let's not hold our breath.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so thrilled to find this book. Last night I finally dipped in and read two of the stories. I loved the translations, but I really, really didn't like the stories. I seem to be missing the point. But I shall press onward.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read *every* story but the ones I did were solid enough. Parallel texts hope you read faster but also make you a bit lazy, so I think the pedagogical value is limited. Better than meh, but not much. I hoiped to find one text to use in my class, but didn't.

[Michael Milton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blew me away. I strongly recommend this book to anyone. I'm shocked that many of these stories haven't made their way into English translation earlier.

[Michelle Santamaria]

it helps me with my espanol!

[in8 · Rating 3 out of 5]

talked about the first half (in spanish) here: http://www.5cense.com/13/338.htm

[Alejandra Vega-Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a splendid collection! Totalmente recomendable. 👌🏼