Customer Reviews

Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction

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What a wonderfully inventive and (at times) disturbing ride we encounter with the bilingual anthology, "Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction" (Dalkey Archive Press, $34.95 hardcover; $15.95 paperback), edited by Álvaro Uribe, with Spanish editing by Olivia Sears. (The left page of the open book is in Spanish which faces the English translation.) Uribe notes in his introduction that people often say that "Mexico is a country of poets." He then posits that "[o]ne could say with equal veracity -- and equal neglect of our estimable novelists, essayists, chroniclers, and playwrights -- that Mexico is a country of short story writers." He begins the anthology with a hilarious piece by Vivian Abenshushan entitled "Lukin's Bed" which concerns a man (Lukin) who starts a movement of men who disavow relationships with women. He builds a huge bed where the men in his community could sleep, safe from female companionship. It is a wry commentary on gender roles and human desire. Other stories explore human brutality, sexual desire, cultural hierarchies. The anthology's narratives steer clear from gentle storytelling; these tales are lean, mean and brilliantly woven depictions of modern life. If Franz Kafka were a contemporary Mexican writer, he'd be included in this collection.

[Excerpted from a review originally published in the El Paso Times.]