Gender, Nation and the Formation of the Twentieth-Century Mexican Literary Canon

Sarah E. L. Bowskill

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Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

6 July 2011  •  144pp

ISBN: 978-1-907975-05-9 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

ISBN: 978-1-351192-83-5 (Taylor & Francis ebook)

SpanishFiction

The post-revolutionary Mexican literary canon was formed by cultural and political elites who sought to identify and reward those novels which would best represent the new nation. Reviewers found what they were looking for in Gregorio López y Fuentes' El indio (1935), Carlos Fuentes' La region más transparente (1958) and Sergio Pitol's El desfile del amor (1984) but not in Consuelo Delgado's Yo también, Adelita (1936), Dolores Castro's La ciudad y el viento (1962) or Ángeles Mastretta's Arráncame la vida (1985). This ground-breaking   study provides a fresh perspective on canon formation by uncovering the circumstances and readings which produced a male-dominated Mexican literary canon. To remedy this gender imbalance Bowskill develops a new interpretive strategy which provides fascinating insights into the texts discussed and throws fresh light on the construction of literary canons.

Dr Sarah Bowskill is a Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Swansea University, UK.

Reviews:

  • ‘Its coherent, well-sustained, and highly persuasive argument is likely to inspire others to take on this and the other challenges outlined in the conclusion. Indeed, as much as Bowskill’s book delves into the archives of reviews of the past, this is also a forward-looking study.’ — Amit Thakkar, Modern Language Review 110.1, January 2015, 273-74 (full text online)
  • ‘Sarah E. L. Bowskill’s study on gender, nation and canon-formation is a groundbreaking treatment of Mexican literature. She dissects a series of canonised and uncanonised novels to prove how the former were privileged by the state and how critics (un)consciously rewarded certain works while ignoring others... Bowskill makes us wonder why no one had deconstructed such critical happenings before, given that nation-building was the overpowering impulse to put Mexico in the literary map of modernity.’ — Francisco A. Lomelí, Bulletin of Latin American Research 34.1, 2014, 106-07

Bibliography entry:

Bowskill, Sarah E. L., Gender, Nation and the Formation of the Twentieth-Century Mexican Literary Canon (Legenda, 2011)

First footnote reference: 35 Sarah E. L. Bowskill, Gender, Nation and the Formation of the Twentieth-Century Mexican Literary Canon (Legenda, 2011), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Bowskill, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Bowskill, Sarah E. L.. 2011. Gender, Nation and the Formation of the Twentieth-Century Mexican Literary Canon (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Bowskill 2011: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Bowskill 2011: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

This Legenda title was first published by Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing but rights to it are now held by Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge.

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Permanent link to this title:

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