The Chronicler as Streetwalker: Salvador Novo and the Performance of Genre

This article analyzes how a young Salvador Novo established himself as a chronicler and public figure 1920’s Mexico City. Through the lens of a polemic that took place between Novo and Ruben M Campos in the weekly El universal ilustrado in 1929, this essay reads Novo’s turn to the chronicle as his response to the debates on the “feminization” of literature which galvanized Mexico’s intellectuals in the aftermath of the revolution. Novo conceives of the chronicle as a genre that performs both the “masculinity” of literature and the “femininity” of mass culture. Doubling as a temptress or a prostitute, the chronicler strips literature of its aura, making it desirable, irresistible, and public. As a chronicler, Salvador Novo works by engaging readers and drawing them in as sexual/textual accomplices to inscribe literary style into the public sphere.