2016
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the airplane became one of the great technological inventions of history and very soon the first planes and pilots arrived to Mexico. The Constitutionalist Army of Venustiano Carranza adopted the aircraft as a part of their military resources. This is how in 1915 the Military Air Arm was created, which marks the origin of the Mexican Air Force. After a century of the Mexican Air Force's foundation their commitment has been to give the graduates of 'El Colegio del Aire' (School of the Air) the best qualifications as well as to have available a completely renewed air fleet. All this effort is put together in order to fulfill their important tasks, like the aid of the population in need after a natural disaster and help in the combat against organized crime.
2016
On January 1, 2014 the Italian firm Fiat announced the total acquisition of Chrysler, establishing Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) as the seventh leader manufacturer of the automotive industry. American Chrysler arrived in 1938 to Mexico under the name of Automex and gained popularity on the Mexican streets and on the tracks with its Valiant Acapulco and Dodge Coronel among other models.
Thu, Nov 17, 2016
The members of the Generation of 29 and of the Half Century Generation were tired of the extreme patriotism within the Mexican Revolution literature, so they left behind they rifles and 'Adelitas' in order to make way to an everyday literature where humor combines with colloquial language, rural and urban scenarios coexist and fantasy has a dialogue with psychology. Works like "El laberinto de la soledad" (The Labyrinth of Solitude) by Octavio Paz, "Pedro Páramo" by Juan Rulfo and "La region más transparente" (Where the Air is Clear) by Carlos Fuentes reflected about social inequality as it was the legacy of the post-revolutionary regime, and on the meantime they aspire to the cosmopolitanism promised by the Mexican Miracle. These two projects defined the new national identity.
2016
After the disenchantment with the consequences that the Mexican Revolution left behind, the writers of the 1970s see in the Cuban Revolution a lighthouse of ideology. The political commitment of the so called Latin American Boom had one of its centers in Mexico and coexisted with the visual language of the 'Onda' (wave) writers as well as with the formal experimentation of its poets and narrators. All of them show the thrust of an aspiring modern and righteous literature. But Mexico wasn't going to be able to become the democratic nation that the festive and liberty-driven youth aspired to, as it was under an intolerant and repressive system. A series of authoritarian measures announced the student repression of 1968.
Thu, Dec 1, 2016
In 1968, a student movement was created with the objective to overhaul the country because of the lack of government tolerance to the critic and dissent. Many of the old writers had their allegiance to the regime, but many others including José Revueltas paired with the youth in their struggle. The new chronicle of Carlos Monsiváis and Elena Poniatowska took the streets to give voice to the worn out population with a vital need to state its denunciation. The dark afternoon of October 2 turned its literature into the hymn of outrage: grieve its dead, search for the truth and reconsider a future where revolution and democracy could exist.
2016
The Mexican government of the 1970s had two faces. On one side it supports economically culture and on the other it maintains censorship. It tries to ideologically seduce its intellectuals while it controls the elections and avoids any opposition to reach the power. It gives asylum to refugees running away from the South American dictatorships as well as supporting the Cuban Revolution, but meanwhile it repressed its students and armed movements that existed within the country. This is the period known as the Dirty War had two important literary consequences and was the cause of important debates within the editorial world of that time.
2016
In 1985, the chronicle writers reappear with narrations of the devastation left by the earthquake that struck Mexico City and the 'Neo-Zapatista' uprising of 1994. In between of these, two other events polarized the intellectual trade: the controversial elections of 1988 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Despite of these differences, CONACULTA (National Council of Culture and Arts) was founded under Carlos Salinas de Gortari's government, as well as a system of grants for artists and writers. In 1990, the Noble Prize for Literature acknowledges the importance of the solid work of Octavio Paz, giving Mexican literature a place in the globalized cultural environment.
2016
The end of the twentieth century was identified by the surge of book fairs, the emergence of the Internet, the political alternation taking the Federal Executive Power of Mexico and the death of Octavio Paz. All these factors transformed once again the political and intellectual scenery of the country. Within this context the two most important novels of the Chilean-Mexican writer Roberto Bolaño - "Los detectives salvajes" (The Savage Detectives) and "2666" - foresaw the direction that Mexican literature would take in the new century. But the literature to come - run across the new technologies and a context that seems to come violently - is still a field to be discovered.