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Introduction
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Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1 The Distinction of Nonfiction: Toward a Theoretical Framework 11 2 Writing the Mexican Revolution of 1910 27 3 Living Stories, Telling Lives: Autobiographical Writings of José Vasconcelos and María Luisa Puga 69 4 Life Writing from a Popular Perspective 107 5 Chronicling Crisis: Late Twentieth-Century Manifestations of the Literature of Encounter 137 6 Making History: Subcomandante Marcos in the Mexican Chronicle 161 Conclusions: Thinking Back, Looking Ahead 191 Notes 201 Works Cited 211 Index 221 [44.200.27.175] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:23 GMT) Acknowledgments I would like to thank a number of colleagues who share my interest in both nonfiction modes of literature and Mexican literature and culture, and who have encouraged my own research and writing through their scholarly work and their friendship. Ignacio Corona’s invitation ten years ago to co-edit the volume The Contemporary Mexican Chronicle led to a deeper engagement with the theory and practice of the chronicle, as well as opening up connections to the wonderful group of contributors —chroniclers and scholars—who made our volume possible. Other colleagues near and far have generously included me in projects that allowed me to develop different aspects of my work on Mexican nonfiction literatures. Mary Long, Linda Egan, Ryan Long, Nuala Finnegan, and Jane Lavery are at the top of that list of valued intellectual collaborators. These acknowledgments would not be complete without thanking two remarkable women: Elena Poniatowska for her writing and for the support and friendship that she has extended to me since I first met her three decades ago, and Rosemary G. Feal for the work that she does at the MLA to benefit our entire profession and the mentoring that she generously provides to so many individuals. Finally, my family—Paul, Megan, and Ben—always keep me going and make the journey a true adventure. vii [44.200.27.175] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:23 GMT) Introduction More than twenty-five years ago when I first read Elena Poniatowska’s highly acclaimed book Hasta no verte, Jesús mío, I read it rather unproblematically as a novel. That is, I read it as a work of fiction, which I took to mean that its narrated world, while it might have a connection —even an easily recognizable one—to what we call reality, did not bear any particular responsibility to that reality. As a novel, its story could not be held up for scrutiny or subjected to a process of verification concerning the accuracy of its information or its claims about the present or the past. The format and the marketing of Poniatowska’s book, and the narrator-protagonist’s improbable opening salvo—“Esta es la tercera vez que regreso a la tierra . . .” (9) [This is the third time that I have returned to earth]—invited its reading as a work of imaginative literature, autonomous from the “real world” and employing language and literary conventions to inscribe its own internal logic and coherence. My role as a reader was to discern and to enjoy the textual construction of character, dialogue, place, time, and action as a process of making meaning through storytelling. However, I was soon to discover that other readers, better informed than I about how the book had been conceived and written, were examining it as a “true-life” story, a testimonio within the tradition of contemporary Latin American writing. While I was preparing to undertake an analysis of Hasta no verte, Jesús mío as a work of fiction, others were busy debating to what degree the published text was faithful or responsible to the interviews that Elena Poniatowska had carried out with a living, identifiable woman— “known,” albeit mistakenly, by the name of Jesusa Palancares. At stake was an argument over whether to classify the text as a testimonio or a novel, or perhaps a testimonio novelado. 1 2 Documents in Crisis I have told the story of the multiple critical readings of Hasta no verte, Jesús mío in my book The Writing of Elena Poniatowska: Engaging Dialogues, and I will not reiterate that work here.1 Nevertheless, I mention this bit of my own history as a reader, because my engagement with what I have called the “creative confusions” surrounding the writing and the reception of Hasta no verte, Jesús mío, and my study of Poniatowska ’s other, more transparently fact-based...