Summer Field Research Terminal Report Page 1 Caroline Thomson Project Title: Recent Trends in Young Writers in Dates conducted: August 3 – 20, 2008

During my two weeks in , I sought to obtain the most contemporary publications possible that deal with my two interests: violence & la mujer. Additionally, I wanted to see if a new generation of younger writers, writers generally associated with the literary movement la generación de Crack, were beginning to move away from what Octavio Paz explained as “Mexico’s obsession with it’s history.” Indeed, the nueva novela histórica is overwhelmingly the focus of more recent academic study. However, a more post-modern outlook would suggest that the search for mexicanidad is impossible in such a complex and heterogenic country. La generación de Crack emerged in the late 1990s with the publication of the Crack Manifiesto in 1996. The style and technique of these younger writers demonstrates a rejection of Boom and Onda aesthetics, rejecting them not only on the grounds that these Gabriel García Márquez imitations are writer with the purpose of being best-sellers, but also because they feel that they are completely alien to their generation. The original five writers of Crack are , , Eloy Urroz, Pedro Angel Palou and Ricardo Chávez-Castañeda. Often times the protagonists are not Mexicans and even more frequently, the action does not develop in Mexico but in Europe or in the United States. Although it may seem inconsequential, it represents a huge break with previous Mexican writing traditions in that it does not concern itself with the pursuit of an essential Mexican identity. Futhermore, these authors are trying to create a new style of writing and often approach this goal intertextually. For example, Jorge Volpi in his ground-breaking book, En busca de Klingsor, from 1999 organizes his text into leyes, hipoteses, disquisiciones & corolarios. The first book, leyes del movimiento narrativo, has three laws which are: Toda narración ha sido escrita por un narrador, todo narrador ofrece una verdad única y todo narrador tiene un motivo para narrar. The second book, leyes del movimiento criminal, has three parallel laws which are: todo crimen ha sido cometido por un criminal, todo crimen es un retrato del criminal, todo criminal tiene un motivo. Finally, the last book is titles leyes del movimiento traidor and the associated laws are todos los hombres son débiles, todos los hombres son mentiros, todos los hombres son traidores. Volpi clearly creates a connection between authorship/narration and criminal and traitors. As such, he is taking away from the authority of the narrator and encouraging the author to play an active part in figuring out the plot. Using this book as an example of the tendencies of Crack, we can further see how these writers deconstruct la novela en sí to open the possibility of multiple genres of writing in one text which, of course, carries over to the idea of multiple identities in one being. En busca de Klingsor is about a the search of an American physicist turned army officer who is searching for Klingsor, the code name of the person, or group of persons, in charge of all experimentation in Nazi Germany during the last years of Summer Field Research Terminal Report Page 2 Caroline Thomson WWII. This would of course include the inhumane experiments performed upon concentration camp prisoners, but also the search (and failure on Germany’s part) to manipulate atomic energy to create a bomb. However, neither the officer nor the reader has any confirmation that Klingsor is more than just a rumor and so we can approach the book as a detective . However, as this protagonist (and I say “this” because there could easily be more than one person who could be identified as the “main character”) performs his research, he meets with many famous scientists such as von Nuemann, Johannes Stark, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, Niels Bohr and Alfred Einstein. Through their conversations the reader follows the history of physics and the history of the war. So while it is a historical novel, it is not one of the Conquest or of the Mexican Revolution, like so much of the preceding has been. Additionally, there are elements of other categories (melodrama, political novel, caballeresca) that allude to the main idea of the Crack, that there can no longer be one concrete authoritative truth but many fragmented possibilities. After all, if this new generation of writers is telling us that we can only have this “version” of truth, it would imply that identity is neither permanent nor essential. Tryno Maldondo, editor of Nueva generación de narradores mexicanos (2008), explains that young writers (born after 1970) of today have a different approach because they no longer have to write and publish under the show of patriarchal and hegemonic figure. He writes, “para esta generación ya no es cool cometer parricidio simplemente porque no hay contra quién hacerlo. El poder patriarcal está disperso y no tiene rostro. La tradición nacional tampoco es algo que les entusiasme ni les quite el sueño.” He explains that this generation of was educated via technology. The young generation of writers is cynical and disenchanted, almost to the point of indifference so to avoid being defrauded again. They grew up amongst many promises of social and economic change that never have been fulfilled and consequently feel disconnected to the structures of Mexico, in a Foucoult-ian sense. Neoliberalismo and promises from the first world and global order have not, according to Maldonado, gone further than brining in a materialism and Euro-centric fashion that only the wealthy can achieve and that the poor can only hope to imitate. For young authors, experiments with hybridization, parody of former traditions and sabotaging the “Grandes relatos” it seems futile to engage in protest behavior, like their parents before them, because after all the effort it seems futile. As a result, the new generation at times comes across as seeming conservative or apathetic to the current situation in Mexico. Maldondo confirms that recent writing reflects an end of borders and nationality in literature. Mexico no longer can be a theme. The search for the “gran novela mexicana” no longer is relevant. Instead, more recent representations of Mexico in literature are depictions with a distrustful outsider’s point of view. This new literature is seemingly undone of ideologies (although I would think this non- Mexican outlook is an outlook in and of itself) and free of false patriotism. It would also be incorrect to Summer Field Research Terminal Report Page 3 Caroline Thomson presume that these writers intent to be universal or “ready-made’ for translation and screen adaptations. More often the text deals with the representation of an individual by itself. The goal is to reach the ser humano as a complex and sometimes contradictory character and validate it as such. With respect to the mujer, you may have noticed that none of the cited authors thus far have been women. However, there are many young women writers as well, such as Julieta Garcia González, Mayra Luna, Alejandra Maldonando, and Ximena Sánchez Echenique. It would be remiss, however, not to notice that they are few in comparison to male writers. Up until now, there are no women recognized as part of Crack. Although these trends are reversing, in part it does deal with a tradition of male writers and access to education. Frequently, women who seek to write belong to a very small, privileged class from the capital. Certainly not all, but many women, such as Angeles Mastretta and Margo Glantz, have achieved a high degree of international recognition as well as quite a bit of success on the market, but they are not quite part of the “in” generation of writers. For example, Margo Glantz’ Historia de una mujer que caminó por la vida con zapatos de diseñador really is about a woman who wanted to go through life in high heels. This book is funny, but frivolous compared to the other writers. I spoke with two professors in Mexico that had very different outlooks on the status of la mujer both as a writer and as a subject in Mexico today. The first was Dr. Ute Seydel, a tenured professor at the UNAM. Feminism has always been a cornerstone of her research, though she says that recent publications do not really address this topic. She cites that there is a blind eye given to the woman’s situation in Mexico, especially with respect to Juarez. When presented with the issue, Seydel said that it would be more useful to speak of a culture of violence as responsible for Juarez, even if it betrays an underlying apathy to these women of a certain ethnic and social background. Lucía Melgar from the PUIG admits a lack of concern for the situation of women in Mexico. She states that the Mexican academy deals with la mujer mostly through press investigations and little through literature. However, even then there is a large concern that by reporting on this violence, the press becomes a target themselves. Certainly there have been writers from both Chihuahua and Mexico City that have been assassinated while investigating the murders. One of the books I purchase 2666 by Roberto Bolaño deals directly with Juarez through his fictional city of Santa Teresa. Bolaño, though born in Chile, spent much of his life as a writer in Mexico. The theme is not entirely absent, but it exists as an uncomfortable topic within literature. I am still working my way through the books I bought and I am hoping to have more complete conclusions shortly. However, before I finish, I would like to address some of the difficulties I encountered in Mexico. Although there are many bookstores in Mexico, they all seem to carry the same best-sellers. The small presses, such as Tinta Nueva, find it very hard to get their books into the major Summer Field Research Terminal Report Page 4 Caroline Thomson stores, although small coffee shops seemed to be a reasonable market for them. However, financially, books are very expensive in Mexico and readership is small. As such, the smaller press publications I did find are not likely to make it to a wide readership and rarely produce more than 300 copies of any book.