Cuentos mexicanos

Myth and legend have existed in Mexico in prehispanic times as a means to transmit cosmogonical or ethological visions. During the colonial period short stories appear intertwined in the many chronicles, histories and writings of the conquistadores, priests and other men of letters. With the Diario de Mexico (1805), the short story starts its long association with journalism, and appears along novels such as Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi's. Literary magazines also were a fertile environment, but it was in 1870, when Jose Maria Roa Barcena published "Noche al raso," an integrated recopilation, and Vicente Riva Palacio his "Cuentos del general" (1896), that the mexican short story began to acquire its prestige as a literary genre, to reach its high artistic level with Gutierrez Najera, Amado Nervo and other "modernists." During the twentieth century various tendencies appeared: the vanguardist school, along Alfonso Reyes, Julio Torri and others; the revolutionary period, centered in the civil war and indigenous issues; and the post-revolutionary period, when the mexican short story finally obtained its international literary high reputation. This anthology, compiled and commented by prof. Luis Leal, gathers stories representative of the genre in Mexico that span from the origins up to the years affected by the Revolution, and constitutes a captivating study reading material both for entry and upper levels Spanish courses.