Novel
Recollections of Things to Come
Los recuerdos del porvenir
Elena Garro · 1963
Synopsis
Ixtepec, an imaginary town in the hot lands of Mexico, tells its own story, sometimes as “I”, sometimes as “we”. After the revolution, federal troops occupy it; General Francisco Rosas rules it as a despot, yet he is dominated by his mistress, the beautiful Julia, whom he keeps at the hotel with the officers' lovers. The Moncada family, the madman Juan Cariño and the whole town endure it, until a stranger, Felipe Hurtado, disturbs this balance and the Cristero War rekindles fear.
Context
The author wrote a first version in 1953, during a convalescence, as a tribute to Iguala and to her childhood; the manuscript remained in a trunk for years, forgotten in a hotel and partly burned, then it was revised before being published in 1963 by Joaquín Mortiz, in Mexico City, where it received the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize. It was translated into English in 1969, into French in 1966 under the title La Fête à Ixtepec, then again in 2003 under the title La Maîtresse d'Ixtepec.
Who it is for
About three hundred and fifty pages of poetic, disorienting prose, in which chronology comes apart; translated into French and English.
Prizes and reception
Xavier Villaurrutia Prize 1963; often regarded as the masterpiece of its author and as one of the first novels of magic realism.
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