México is a nonfiction book written by Erico Verissimo. Released in 1957, it details Verissimo's travels through the titular nation.
Publisher's summary[]
"When I crossed the Mexican border, I felt the desire to write again." This confession, recorded in an interview given a few months after Octavio Paz and Diego Rivera's third trip to the country, gives a measure of the influence exerted by the unexpected and wonderful aspects of Mexican culture on Erico Verissimo's fictional creation.
Carried out in May 1955 alongside his wife, Mafalda, the journey by the author of Time and the Wind through Mexico enabled him to overcome the creative block caused by the bureaucratic hardships of his position at the Organization of American States, in Washington.
Permeated with aesthetic, historical and anthropological reflections, Mexico is a delightful account of his experiences along a route that included the federal capital, Oaxaca, Taxco, Cuernavaca, Puebla and other cities in the Meseta Central. In the company of local guides such as writer José Vasconcelos and muralist David Siqueiros - as well as their gaucho friend Vianna Moog, who was then living in the Federal District -, the Verissimo indulge in a complete immersion in Mexican culture.
Amid Aztec and Toltec ruins, baroque churches and rococo palaces, crowded markets and lonely streets, the vivid descriptions of the places visited escape the stereotypes of the false picturesque to present the Brazilian reader with a surprising Mexico, divided between attachment to indigenous and criollo traditions. and the accelerated modernization of customs.
(this was translated from Portuguese using Google Translate)
Full summary[]
TBA
See also[]
- Iberia by James A. Michener
Sources[]
TBA