Mexican Postcards

Front Cover
Verso, May 17, 1997 - Art - 202 pages
Carlos Monsiváis is one of Latin America’s most prescient and prolific social commentators. In this, the first English translation of his work, he presents an extraordinary chronicle of contemporary life south of the Rio Grande, which ranges over pop music, Latino hip hop, film stars such as Cantinflas and Dolores del Rio, the writer Juan Rulfo, life on the border with the United States, boleros and melodrama.

Monsiváis’s chronicles are theoretically informed but are crammed with people rather than abstractions. They make points of deadly seriousness in a voice which is laconic, satirical and humorous, and which is often written in the register of his subjects. Monsiváis draws on a deep understanding of Mexico’s cultural histories—popular, mass and high—and notes the fascinating ways in which they interact to transform each other. The conflicts between Mexican and North American culture and between modern and traditional ways of life are constant themes of his investigations.

A dazzling mixture of reportage, narrative and biting social criticism, Mexican Postcards is certain to establish Monsiváis’s rightful place in the pantheon of Latin America’s greatest writers.
 

Contents

High Contrast Still Life
1
Identity Hour or What Photos Would You Take of the Endless City?
31
Tradition Hour
36
The Funky Dive
48
Juan Rulfo
57
The Face as Institution
71
Thats the Point
88
The Pachuco
106
The Boy Fidencio and the Roads to Ecstasy
119
From Cabora to Chiapas
129
The Crime Pages in Mexico
148
A History
166
EPILOGUE A New Catechism for Reluctant Indians
196
INDEX
197
Copyright

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About the author (1997)

Carlos Monsiváis is the author of Mexican Postcards, Lost Love, Scenes of Frivolity and Shame, Free Entry and The Rituals of Chaos.

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