I came to the FIL because they told me that Mexican literature lived here, someone might say, paraphrasing Juan Rulfo. And the truth is that one of the attractions of the main literary fair on the American continent – and second in the world –, which closed its doors a week ago, is, in addition to delving into the culture of the special guest (this year, the European Union ), that of taking the pulse of the current state of the country with the most Spanish speakers in the world.
The foreign visitor who has browsed through the different stands of the FIL and attended its round tables, no matter how informed he thought he was, will have realized that, in literature, the concept of terra ignota still exists, fully in force, that is That is to say, vast unknown territories that show that, in the era of globalization and new technologies, many titles are still published in a single country and do not reach others, even if they speak the same language.
The great international phenomenon, yes, is Fernanda Melchor (Veracruz, 1982), who combines praise from critics, the public and even already has a movie on Netflix of her novel Hurricane Season (2017), which narrates the real murder of a witch. Melchior delves into the horror of violence. Her latest work, Páradais (Random House, 2021) shows her based on the crime committed by some boys from a luxury residential complex. “We humans forget the dark side that inhabits us. We are not even aware that we harbor sinister, vengeful or cruel desires,” she states.
If one asks about the greatest living Mexican writer, one of the names that is most repeated (if not the most) is that of Cristina Rivera Garza (Matamoros, 1964). She cultivates both novels, essays and poetry. Her most read work is Liliana's Invincible Summer (Random House, 2021), where she addresses the murder of her sister at the hands of an ex-boyfriend who did not accept her breaking up the relationship. “I am very clear that there are femicides because there is impunity. The feminicides know, they have proven it, that they can get away with it,” she says. In Cotton Autobiography (2020) she explores her northern origins, on cotton plantations.
The fashion author is Brenda Navarro (Mexico City, 1982). After addressing maternities in Casasvacadas (2018), her latest work, Ceniza en la boca (Sexto Piso), is narrated by a young Mexican woman obsessed with the suicide of her younger brother in Madrid, the city where she resides. .
Navarro is part of the large group of the Spanish diaspora, which includes such established names as those from Barcelona Juan Pablo Villalobos (Guadalajara, 1973) and Eduardo Ruiz Sosa (Culiacán, 1983) or the Madrid-born David Toscana (Monterrey, 1961). and Jorge Volpi (Mexico City, 1968).
For the essayist and literary critic Mary Carmen Sánchez Ambriz, “there are many inflated authors who receive awards and reissues. It must be seen with critical eyes because many will not endure rereading it. The question would be: which authors will we continue reading? There are those that do not sell as much but have built an aesthetic proposal with solid steps. The FIL has become a vanity fair, you have to look for good literature among the show, there you have Xavier Velasco singing rap. Writers become showmen. Juan Rulfo would not have done that, the authors before were very shy. It is not necessary for writers to have so much presence. Regarding those that are adapted to the cinema, I will say that there are very good films that are based on books with serious deficiencies such as novels.
Luis Felipe Pérez, professor at the University of Guanajuato, places emphasis on “literature written by women, which has brought to light new themes, such as care and autobiographical claims, which have profoundly renewed the coming-of-age novel, a genre that makes years was masculine and now we have such outstanding examples as Dominio (sexual, vital and artistic initiation) and Aura Ayar. Other names of good authors are Ximena Santaolalla, Alaíde Ventura Medina, Gilma Luque, Liliana Blum, Mónica Lavín, Ethel Krauze, Myriam Moscona or Mónica Castellanos, who in Those Hours That We Were Stolen tells the story of Gilberto Bosques, the Mexican consul who since France saved the lives of thousands of Spanish exiles due to the civil war.
All of them are names that join living classics, such as Elena Poniatowska, Cervantes Prize winner, who is still active at 91 years old, or great authors such as Juan Villoro (Mexico City, 1956), who has just published La figura del mundo (Random House, 2023) about the figure of his father, or Antonio Ortuño, who explores in The Invincible Armada (Seix Barral) the adventures of a rock band. And one of the best books published in recent years has been Just before the end, the portrait that Emiliano Monge (Mexico City, 1978) made of his mother.
For the storyteller Roberto Abad, “there are new forms and ideas generating a new canon that questions the past, the canon that paved the way for us did not let us see the whole panorama. More genres are read, that is very important, and the fantastic had been relegated, like other imaginaries that were out of the norm. It is a necessary reckoning, with names like Claudia Cabrera Espinosa, Pedro J.Acuña, Efraím Blanco or Atenea Cruz, which addresses so-called genre literature but also indigenous literature, that 10 years ago was nothing like that.”
Precisely, each year the FIL awards the Indigenous Literature prize, which this year went to James Sarao for his essay The Narrative Aesthetics of Tsikbal, which addresses the origin and meaning of the word that in the Mayan language translates conversation and that permeates their entire civilization. . “If you ask me if I feel Mayan,” he explains, “I answer no, that is a colonizer's word, we have to rethink how our culture is categorized. In any case, this award for an essay represents progress since there are those who believed that our languages were only suitable for fiction.”
Luis Felipe Pérez, professor at the University of Guanajuato, places emphasis on “literature written by women, which has brought to light new themes, such as care and autobiographical claims, which have profoundly renewed the coming-of-age novel, a genre that makes years was masculine and now we have two such outstanding examples as Dominio (Sexto Piso) by Claudina Domingo (sexual, vital and artistic initiation) and Aura Ayar (Fondo Blanco) by Lilia Ábalos.” Other names are Gilma Luque, Geney Beltrán
For Ignacio Sánchez Prado, professor at Washington University in St. Louis (USA), “Mexican literature in recent years is far from what it was during the 20th century and even in the first years of the 21st century. I don't think Carlos Fuentes has readers or followers among current authors. Octavio Paz has some, but I believe that the divisions that his figure continues to generate leads several authors to distance themselves from him. On the other hand, Juan Rulfo continues to remain valid, and much of the dialogue with the 20th century has been about his recovery.
"We are," he continues, "before the first moment in the history of Mexican literature in which women writers play the most important role in the country's literature."
The two main publishing groups in Mexico are Spanish multinationals, Planeta and Penguin Random House (the latter, from the German group Bertelsmann). Regarding the growing presence of Mexican publishers in Spain (Sexto Piso, Almadía, FCE or Siglo XXI have offices and distribution), Abad believes that “what arrives outside is only a panorama, for example the literature that develops violence, that shows the femicides, but looking only at that shortens, it gives only an image of what is currently being done. Horror, fantasy, science fiction are in a constant struggle to conquer those same spaces, luckily there are independent publishers that look towards that.” For Sánchez Prado, “the emergence of writers in Mexico today has a lot to do with a group of independent publishers that have opted for authors who are now consolidated: Dharma Books, Elefanta, Antílope, Paraíso Perdido and others, which complement the work they have done. done for longer Sixth Floor and Almadía.”
The academic Magali Velasco also cites the phenomenon of Mexicans or descendants who, in the US and Canada, have already switched to English: “We have had in this FIL Julia Ríos, an important science fiction author, winner of the Hugo. Valeria Luiselli, Reyna Grande and Silvia Moreno-García, horror narrator, have also already adopted this language.”
Élmer Mendoza, a reference in border crime novels, living in Sinaloa, points out that “the detective genre has become something very well crafted, with great literary demands.” “The majority of authors, curiously, are northerners,” he points out, “such as Orfa Alarcón (author of the notable Perra brava and Loba), Carlos René Padilla or José Juan Aboytia.” He points out the assault on cinema as a pending issue, “whose only clear link is Guillermo Arriaga, who navigates both worlds, the literary and the cinematic. The rest of us are still waiting, contrary to what some believe,” he laughs.
