The Mexican Dream: Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780226110035)

Winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature, J. M. G. Le Cl騷io here conjures the consciousness of Mexico, powerfully evoking the dreams that made and unmade an ancient culture. Le Cl騷io's haunting book takes us into the dream that was the religion of the Aztecs, a religion whose own apocalyptic visions anticipated the coming of the Spanish conquerors. Here the dream of the conquistadores rises before us, too, the glimmering idea of gold drawing Europe into the Mexican dream. Against the religion and thought of the Aztecs and the Tarascans and the Europeans in Mexico, Le Cl騷io also shows us those of the "barbarians" of the north, the nomadic Indians beyond the pale of the Aztec frontier.

Finally, Le Cl騷io's book is a dream of the present, a meditation on what in Amerindian civilizations--in their language, in their way of telling tales, of wanting to survive their own destruction--moved the poet, playwright, and actor Antonin Artaud and motivates Le Cl騷io in this book. His own deep identification with pre-Columbian cultures, whose faith told them the wheel of time would bring their gods and their beliefs back to them, finds fitting expression in this extraordinary book, which brings the dream around.

"We are lucky to have in Le Cl騷io a writer of great quality who brings his particular sensibility and talent here to remind us of the very nature of the rituals and myths of the civilizations of ancient Mexico; he provides us with descriptions as precise as they are mysterious."--Le Figaro

Author: J. M. G. Le Cl騷io
ISBN-10: 0226110036
ISBN-13: 9780226110035
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 07/01/2009
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.71lbs
Size: 8.83h x 6.24w x 0.50d