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Acknowledgments
- University of Wisconsin Press
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Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to Princeton University’s Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty for funding the translation of many of the essays included in The Mexico City Reader. I thank Professor Angel Loureiro, chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures at Princeton, for his support of the project and his suggestions of external funding sources. The Mex-Am Foundation in New York City provided generous support for including works by young Mexican artists. I first thought of assembling an anthology about modern-day Mexico City in 1998, during a conversation with Juan García de Oteyza, then the executive director of the Mexican Cultural Institute in New York City. I am indebted to Mr. García de Oteyza for his enthusiastic support of the book, as well as for recommending several writers and texts for the anthology. Some of the texts included in this book were first published in the Mexican Cultural Institute’s web journal, La Vitrina, then edited by Mónica de la Torre, who provided excellent suggestions for revising the translations. In Mexico City, many writers and critics were kind enough to discuss the project and recommend additional texts. Christopher Domínguez Michael, Juan Villoro, Rafael Pérez Gay, José Emilio Pacheco, Carlos Monsiváis, and José de la Colina shared their encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary Mexican literature. I thank Professor Ilán Stavans and Irene Vilar for selecting The Mexico City Reader for publication in the Americas series and for sharing his insights on the Mexico City literary world. I am also indebted to Robert Mandel, director of the University of Wisconsin Press, for his support, xiii and to Tricia Brock for her help with permissions and other administrative matters. Jean Franco and Maarten van Delden read an early version of the manuscript and offered numerous suggestions for revision. I am grateful for their expert advice. I wish to thank Marcelo Uribe, director of Ediciones Era, for granting permission to translate and reprint the texts by José Joaquín Blanco, Elena Poniatowska, and Carlos Monsiváis. Rafael Pérez Gay granted permission to use texts by several authors represented by Cal y Arena, including Guadalupe Loaeza. Ray Gude Mertin and Nicole Witt facilitated the inclusion of Gonzalo Celorio’s “Mexico, City of Paper” in this volume. I am grateful to Lorna Scott Fox for masterfully translating the texts included in the anthology and offering helpful suggestions. Elyse Kovalsky proofread the manuscript and helped with countless clerical tasks. As I worked to put together an anthology to convey the chaotic, unpredictable nature of Mexico City, I often thought of Tito Monterroso and his gift for balancing insight and wit, intelligence and humor. When I told Tito about the project, he said he “craved” reading it (“se me antojo ”) thus suggesting that the book could be as appetizing as a delicious meal—a staple of life in Mexico City. As I was finishing the manuscript and getting ready to send it off, I received extremely sad news: Tito passed away at age eighty-two on February 7, 2003. The Mexico City Reader is dedicated to him and to his life-affirming wit. xiv ...