Reading Society: Elena Poniatowska's Children's Books in Terms of Her Body of Work

Important writers tend to be recognized in terms of one book, J.D. Salinger or Nellie Campobello, for example, or for innovative style and imagination, such as contemporary novelists William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez. Gazing back on publication periods, critics tend to group writers in terms of literary movements: the so-dubbed Latin American "Boom," and later the "Latina Boom." It is less likely for critics to distinguish writers for both early, revolutionary work as well as an extensive body of work exhibiting innovations. In Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska's case, she can be categorized for both, as well as acute and continuous engagement of social realities, of the essence and people of Mexico.

Grouped with Mexican writers of her generation and those born shortly before, Carlos Fuentes, Sergio Pitol, Fernando del Paso, and Carlos Monsiváis, they are authors of both non-fiction and fiction. Like Fuentes, she has standout early books. Awards received–like her publication overall–extend over decades: in 1971 Poniatowska received Mexico's highest writing award–named for Xavier Villaurrutia–for her book on the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre of demonstrators (an award she declined, asking publicly who would give an award to the hundreds killed). Twice she received the Premio Mazatlán: in 1970 for Hasta no verte, Jesús mío, evoking the Mexican underdog, and again in 1992 for a novel on Tina Modotti's life. She has been distinguished with the two highest literary awards in Spanish-language letters: the Latin American Premio Rómulo Gallegos in 2007 for El tren pasa primero (2005)–a novel on the railroad worker strikes and long-jailed labor leader Demetrio Vallejo–and in late 2013, Spain's lifetime achievement award, the Premio Cervantes.

Having begun her career in journalism, it is often stated that Poniatowska invented a new interviewing style, one which transferred into her preparation for novels, often extending over many years to produce a work. Her key talent and approach to writing, however, is her listening ability–the way she hears the Mexican public, capturing it on the page: the lived experiences of people in diverse walks of life, significantly those on the fringes of society. This process over a ten-year period revealed the dialogue and tone of her soldadera informant in her standout novel on the 1910 Mexican Revolution, Hasta no verte, Jesús mío, where she relates, through a female character, the experience of those ignored by the victors of the Revolution, relocated to Mexico City after the war left desolation in rural areas, who then remained in the lowest level economy. Critics considered this an early example of testimonial literature, a movement comprising texts that document voiceless communities in postcolonial Latin America.¹ In the 1970s–prior to concerted attention to social movements and the impact of neoliberalism on disenfranchised communities–Latin American realities were becoming visible through literary works (which critics, on the other hand, viewed mainly in terms of magical realism).

Poniatowska's 1969 novel was not particularly "magical" for categorization, nor did it fit mainstream notions of the so-called Latin American Boom of the era (despite extensive book sales). Her novel published in 1978–a creative series of letters to Diego Rivera by his companion left behind in Paris when he returned to Mexico to become a muralist–had a female protagonist but again, did not possess the form entertained as a Latina Boom of the 1980s, where critics preferred descriptors of love stories and recipes, and magical realism. Despite being a woman writer, Poniatowska's earlier work has remained outside generalized divisions: is she journalist or novelist? A precursor or in the boom of women writers? Grouped with male writers of her generation or outside mainstream constructs? Answers to these questions demonstrate that Poniatowska's narratives defy categorization. Critics have only slowly mediated recognition and understanding.

By the 1990s, scholars began studying the impact of Latin American women writers, at first mainly by interview collections. Assessments developed: Cynthia Steele (who has eschewed the 1980s hot-selling women...