The Mexico City Reader (THE AMERICAS) [Paperback]

Ruben Gallo (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2004 | Series: THE AMERICAS

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-a

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Publisher

The Americas, Ilan Stavans, Series Editor, Irene Vilar, Associate Editor

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; 1 edition (July 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 029919714X
• ISBN-13: 978-0299197148
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #222,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #12 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Wisconsin

More About the Author

Rubén Gallo is an award-winning writer and scholar. He is the author of Freud's Mexico: Into the Wilds of Psychoanalysis (2010), an essay about Freud's fantasies about Mexico. He has also published Mexican Modernity: the Avant-Garde and the Technological Revolution (2005), an essay about the Mexican avant-garde's fascination with machines, and two books about Mexico City's visual culture: New Tendencies in Mexican Art (2004) and The Mexico City Reader (2004). He is currently at work on a new book on Marcel Proust's Latin Americans. He is a member of the board of the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, and in 2009 he was the Freud-Fulbright Visiting Scholar in Psychoanalysis in Austria. He teaches at Princeton University and lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best narrative modern history of Mexico City, August 25, 2008

By 

Hankk (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mexico City Reader (THE AMERICAS) (Paperback)

Awesome book. This books paints a picture of Mexico City like no other. It's a collection of 30-some essays and reportage. Some have a historical perspective (e.g., the Metro system just after it was built), while others are very recent. This isn't a guidebook, but it will give you a better understanding of the city's underpinnings than a stack of Lonely Planets ever will.

Most of the authors are Mexicans; a lot of the essays are famous in Mexico, and appearing in English for the first time. There is a level of authenticity here that is not reached by competing books (e.g., David Lida's 'First Stop in the New World' -- which is more of an American journalist's perspective on things.)

The writing is exciting, artistic, and well-chosen.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Way to Understand the Modern DF, May 14, 2011

By 

S. Swenson (Blaine, Washington United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mexico City Reader (THE AMERICAS) (Paperback)

This Reader contains several stories that explain the background of various landmarks in the Distrito Federal. Each chapter makes a great day read and they are well-written and pertinent, even for frequent visitors.