Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes For half a century after La Revolución (1910-1917), two writers dominated Mexican literature. Octavio Paz became the preeminent poet, and Carlos Fuentes the outstanding novelist. The two were close friends, exchanging more than a thousand letters, but were eventually estranged. Paz wrote, “A flower without a stem is beauty waiting …
Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán Just how bad was “Bloody” Guzmán? One of his biographers, Santana, claimed he was known for “cruelty of the highest order, ambition without limit, a refined hypocrisy, great immorality, ingratitude without equal, and a fierce hatred for Cortés.” Guzmán went down in history as, by far, the worst of all the …
“So, what’s it all about?” my Uncle Fred used to ask me over the sumptuous meals we shared at yearly reunions. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to tell me,” I responded, laughing. Uncle Fred had been a Catholic priest. But when told by the bishop to abandon his ministry to alcoholics in order to say …
Javier Mina and Pedro Moreno In 1808, at the age of 18, Javier Mina abandoned his law studies to defend his homeland, Spain, from Napoleon’s invasion, and to restore King Ferdinand VII to his rightful throne. Mina became a guerilla fighter who was so successful that he soon commanded a force of nearly 1,400 soldiers …
La Princesa Purépecha Eréndira, whose name means “Smiling Morning,” was a 17-year old princess of the Purépecha people, Natives who lived in the current Mexican state of Michoacán at the time of the Spanish conquest. Eréndira’s father, King Tangaxoán II, and her fiancé, the commander of all Purépecha armies, both overawed by the Spaniards’ conquest …
Teresa Urrea She was the Mexican Joan of Arc. In 1889, when she was 16 years old, Teresa Urrea suffered an acute case of catalepsy, which left her in a death-like coma for nearly two weeks. When she recovered in an apparently miraculous resurrection, she claimed that she’d had heavenly visions and that the Virgin …
Lázaro Cárdenas “I made an effort to serve my country… with greater commitment to the needy people,” Lázaro Cárdenas wrote in his journal after he’d stepped away from the presidency and power. “I canceled many privileges and distributed much of the wealth that was in few hands.” Indeed, with a remarkable combination of compassion, cunning, …
Maximilian There are no streets in Mexico named for Maximilian, but there ought to be. Certainly no Mexican history would be complete without him. Maximilian was an eminently likable, admirable, but hapless fellow. He was born second-in-line to the Austrian throne, and so believed he would never rule. He made the best of things, though, …
By David Ellison
