Monsivais Writes the (Bi)centennial

Abstract

Despite his participation in many of the festivities and events related to the (Bi)centennial, CarlosMonsiváis was one of the most direct critics of the commemorations of the initiation of MexicanIndependence and the Mexican Revolution. However, in his literary chronicles to date, many ofthe author’s disagreements do not appear; instead, these writings show two general tendencies:1) the tendency to postpone the (Bi)centennial to another year or transform the festivities intocelebrations of something else; and 2) the tendency to mask the author’s own preferences, thatis, to not take sides in his chronicles on the commemorations. The article inserts Monsiváis’schronicles into a “tradition” of “commemoratory chronicling” and suggests some possible reasonsfor their somewhat unusual treatment of Mexico’s (bi)centennial celebrations.

Keywords

• Carlos Monsiváis
• Mexican
• Independence
• Centennial
• Revolution
• literature