Points of Departure - Softcover

Lavin, Monica; Segade, Gustavo V.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872863816 ISBN 13: 9780872863811

Publisher: City Lights Publishers, 2001

Synopsis

Points of Departure brings together seventeen Mexican authors born in the 1950s and 1960s, most of whom had never before been published in English.

Magical realism and exoticism are nowhere to be found in this collection of sophisticated, very contemporary stories. Rather, the surreal contradictions and juxtapositions of daily life in Mexico are a permeating presence. A sharp sense of irony, incongruity and hilarity pervades many of the scenarios offered here, along with an acid-tongued fatalism in the face of a reality where poverty, lawlessness and urban decay coexist alongside innocent dreams of love.

By Bernardo Ruíz, Josefina Estrada, Rafael Pérez Gay, Humberto Rivas, Daniel Sada, Rosa Beltrán, David Toscana, Juan Villoro, Mónica Lavín, Juvenal Acosta, Álvaro Uribe, Rosina Conde, Eduardo Antonio Parra, Mauricio Montiel, Ethel Krauze, Enrique Serna, Francisco Hinojosa

"A satisfying collection of 17 short stories by as many writers, all born in the 1950s and 1960s. . . . A fine collection."—Kirkus Review

Gustavo Segade is Emeritus Professor of Spanish at San Diego State University. He has translated the work of many South American and Mexican writers, including Olga Orozco, Alberto Blanco, Rosina Conde, Sergio Elizondo, Mónica Lavín and Daniel Sada.

Mónica Lavin (Mexico City) is a writer and journalist, a dedicated cultural organizer and commentator, and president of the Association of Ibero-American Writers.

About this title

About the Author

Born in Mexico City in 1955, ML has published several books of short stories, a novel, and a book about ecology. She is also a prize-winning print and radio journalist and writes about culture for Mexico's national newspaper, El Universal as well as for monthly magazines. She is a dedicated cultural organizer and promoter, and is currently president of the Association of Iberoamerican Writers.

From Booklist

Mexico is the source of some of the most imaginative short stories written in the world today, to which this sampling attests. The editor has gathered 17 examples, all written by Mexican writers born in the 1950s and 1960s, who came of artistic maturity in a literary culture that has long honored the short story form. The writers represented here, as the editor notes, are "men and women . . . who feel comfortable with the genre's capacity for suggestion, the dizzying effect of its structure, and the brilliance of its language." The three-page "He Wouldn't Give Up His Turn," by Humberto Rivas, is a discomfiting picture of a man waiting in line to use a public phone. The narrator of "Scheheresade," by Rosa Beltran, overanalyzes and overintellectualizes her affair. All the stories live up to the collection's title, taking the reader off in many directions in terms of style, theme, and subject matter. Brad Hooper
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About this edition

• Publisher: City Lights Publishers
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0872863816
• ISBN 13: 9780872863811
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184