Regarding my years of research in Mexico involving often semiannual extended trips to Mexico City, I am grateful to Dubravka Suznjevic for generously allowing me to operate out of her home and always ensuring that I would get enough chiles poblanos and, on occasion, chapulines. So many of my Mexican friends, going back to the years I enjoyed living in la Colonia Puebla in Mexico City in the late eighties, helped in their own way to incite my interest in this project. My friends and colleagues in New York City and New Orleans, particularly my various tennis teammates, rivals, and playing partners, have helped me keep my sanity through years of endless research, formulations, translations, edits, and rewrites. I am indebted to Tulane's Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies, to New York University's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, To the Dean's Office of New York University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and to the New York University Department of Comparative Literature's Anaïs Nin Fellowship for research and travel funding that allowed me to carry out this lengthy project promptly and effectively. Key research facilities have included Mexico's Biblioteca and Hemeroteca Nacional, particularly its Fondo Reservado for older materials, along with New York University's Bobst Library and Tulane University's Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, most particularly its Latin American Library, where I have benefited greatly from the personal attention of its director Guillermo Náñez and senior librarian Paul Bary. The latter stages of this project owe much to the wise and generous advice of Jean Franco and the encouragement of George Yúdice, as well as to positive reinforcement from my colleagues on the faculty and among the graduate students in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Tulane University. I also greatly appreciate the professionalism of Richard Morrison, my acquiring editor at the University of Minnesota Press, and of copy editor John Eagleson. Despite her demanding professional schedule, Sylvia Molloy has given me steadfast support over the years in so many ways. Without her wise and thoughtful suggestions, I would never have been able to