The Magic Lantern: Having a Ball and Christmas Eve (Library of Latin America)

José Tomas de Cuéllar (1830-1894) was a Mexican writer noted for his sharp sense of humor and gift for caricature. Having a Ball and Christmas Eve are two novellas written in the costumbrista style, made popular in the mid-nineteenth century by the periodical press in which these sketches of contemporary manners were first published. The stories are a sensitive reflection of the effects of modernization brought by an authoritarian regime dedicated to order and progress.

Having a Ball depicts women and their dedication to fashion. It is through them that Cuellar examines a society susceptible to foreign values, the importation of which radically altered the face of Mexico and its traditional customs. Christmas Eve describes a volatile middle class in which people pursue pleasure and entertainment without regard to morality.

Margo Glantz is Professor of Literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and is former Director of The Fine Arts Institute of Mexico. She is a well-known literary critic, the award-winning author of several novels, and the first woman to be inducted into the Mexican Academy of Letters.