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Creating Cultural Prestige: Editorial Joaquín Mortiz
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2022
Extract
For the past thirty years, the imprint “Editorial Joaquín Mortiz” has stood for innovation, quality, and prestige in Mexican literature. After it was founded in 1962, Joaquín Mortiz quickly emerged as the premier literary publisher in Mexico and has provided readers with many of the novels and short stories now recognized as landmarks defining the contemporary canon of Mexican fiction. Most studies of Mexican narrative of the 1960s have tended to emphasize the dichotomy between the elitist self-conscious experimentation of escritura writing and the irreverent youthful exuberance of onda writing. Shifting the focus from texts to publishers, however, reveals a different configuration. Editorial Joaquín Mortiz actually encouraged both these trends by cultivating the work of escritura authors such as Salvador Elizondo, Juan García Ponce, and José Emilio Pacheco along with those of onda authors like Gustavo Sainz and José Agustín. Moreover, during its first two years, Joaquín Mortiz staked much of its early reputation on promoting two Mexican novels now fundamental to women's writing throughout Latin America: Oficio de tinieblas (1962) by Rosario Castellanos and Los recuerdos del porvenir (1963) by Elena Garro. Thus Editorial Joaquín Mortiz has greatly influenced the development of contemporary Mexican narrative.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © 1996 by the University of Texas Press
Footnotes
My sincerest thanks to Joaquín Díez-Canedo Flores, whose cooperation made this project possible by giving me access to company materials and work space in the summers of 1992 and 1993. Joaquín Díez-Canedo and Aurora Díez-Canedo Flores also generously provided time and information. Vicente Quirarte, Director de Publicaciones at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, offered unflagging encouragement, while Federico Patán shared his knowledge and contacts in literary circles. Bernardo Ruiz, Director de Literatura at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, provided information about the Premio Xavier Villaurrutia. Eugenio Aguirre, president of the Sociedad General de Escritores Mexicanos, provided information about the first two series of “Lecturas Mexicanas.” Additional interviews, suggestions, and support were provided by Silvia Molina, Sara Sefchovich, Francisco Prieto, Hernán Lara Zavala, Rogelio Carvajal, and Sandy Celorio. This research was supported in the summer of 1992 by a grant from the General Research Fund of the University of Kansas.
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