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Mexican Articles

I live about six months a year in San Miguel de Allende, in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico.  I've become intensely interested in Mexican writers and foreign writers who have visited Mexico and written about the country.  Every two weeks, I publish a piece in the San Miguel's bi-lingual magazine, Lokkal, under the title "The Writer in Mexico," which discusses a book by one of these writers.  You can access these articles here.

"Skully meditations": Allen Ginsberg in Mexico (Part 3)

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The Hero of Yajalón: Allen Ginsberg in Mexico (Part 2)

Allen Ginsberg in Mexico

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A Blind Man's Eyes Are Opened in Mexico

Aldous Huxley: A "civilized mind coming to grips with Mexico"

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The "Precious Jewel" of Early Mexican Books

The "Fraternity of the Cosmos": Octavio Paz's Poetic Vision

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A River and a City that Sing

Buddhism, Goofballs, and Whores: Jack Kerouac's Tristessa

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"Chopin to the electric chair!": Mexico's Stridentist Poets

"Crazy Rhythm": Paul Bowles' Mexican Story

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Paul Bowles in Mexico

Grandeza mexicana: The First Significant American Poem

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The "Interrupted Thought" of Pre-Conquest Mexico

The Young Writer in Mexico: At the Writers' Conference

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Again to Mexico: Paul Theroux's On the Plain of Snakes

Through Mexico by Train!

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Carlos Fuentes' Titantic Novel

Tomie dePaola's "Legend of the Poinsettia"

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John Steinbeck's "The Miracle of Tepayac"

A More Spacious View

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"Fraud and Rapine": Joseph Wheelan's Invading Mexico

"Never, never dull": Bernard DeVoto's Year of Decision: 1846

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An American Land Grab in Old Mexico

"The wonderful shimmer of creation": D. H. Lawrence's Mornings in Mexico

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A Stranger in the Jardín: Anita Desai's Rosarita

Che Guevara's Letters from Mexico

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Parable as Literary Masterpiece: John Steinbeck’s The Pearl

John Steinbeck's Letters from Mexico

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"Good people of laughter and kindness": John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat

The "Horizontal Vertigo" of Mexico City

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The Tragic Tale of a Mexican Book Collector

"Too much soul": The Surreal Life and Work of Leonora Carrington

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Truth, Tenderness, Severity: The Mexican Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

Complete Enjoyment of the Senses: Mexico's First Truly Modern Poet

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"Panther with a Pen": Rebecca West in Mexico

A Witch Story Like No Other: Fernanda Melchor's Hurricane Season

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The Mexican Novel of a "Catholic agnostic"

Octavio Paz: A Resounding Yes to Life

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The "American Ismael" in Mexico: Edward Dahlberg

A New Kind of Mexican Novel

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Mexico's First Haiku Poet, José Juan Tablada

Robert Frost ... in Mexico!?!

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A Proust who Lived in Mexico: Salvador Novo

"Open your eyes, Miss Harriet": Carlos Fuentes' The Old Gringo

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Mexico

A Very Mexican Christmas

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"This Is Not Miami": The Dirty Realism of Fernanda Melchor

Travels with Daisy: The Mexican Odyssey of Dickinson and Bowman

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Mexico's First Novel: El Periquillo Sarniento

Augie's Adventures in Mexico

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"Barbarism, color, glamour, and risk": Saul Bellow in Mexico

The Lover and Critic of Mexican Melodrama: Carlos Monsiváis

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The Liberated Spirit: Ancient Aztec Poetry

Langston Hughes in Mexico

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Mexico's "cultural caudillo": José Vasconcelos and La raza cósmica

Ilan Stavans: the "non-Mexican Mexican"

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John Reed: A "romantic revolutionary" in Mexico

Part Heaven, Part Hell: The Mexican Poems of Malcolm Lowry

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Walt Whitman: ¿"Racista, Imperialista, Antimexicano"?

The Cosmic Vigor of Mexico; Victor Serge's Unforgiving Years

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"Always some chance of salvation": The Mexican Essays of Katherine Anne Porter

"The Future is Brown": The Odyssey of Richard Rodriguez

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The "Audacious Beauty" of Sor Juana's Poetry

The "Tenth Muse" of México: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

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The "Incurable Democrat": Michael Harrington in Mexico

Juan Rulfo: "The DNA of Mexicanidad"

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"I am here to tell the story": Pablo Neruda's Mexico

"The last of the magic countries": Pablo Neruda in Mexico

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Terrified in Mexico: The towering genius of Malcolm Lowry

"Idyllic in Cuernavaca": Malcolm Lowry's Tortured Sojourn in Mexico

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"A treasury of many things worthy of being known": The Florentine Codex

A "double outsider": the Mexican American novels of Michael Nava

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"The Path of the Codex": Mexico's Pre-Conquest Writing Systems

Lost in Mexico: Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana

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A "cotton-headed romanticist" in Mexico

An American Writer Looks at Christmas in Mexico

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The "Prince of Pilgrims" in Mexico

Mexico's "Barefoot Iliad":The Underdogs

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"Prolonged Romance" with Mexico, Charles Macomb Flandrau

Tina Modotti: Mexicana ad Honorem

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The Haunting Voice of Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo

An Urban Vampire: Luis Zapata's Pioneering Gay Novel

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A "Hymn to Life": Diego Rivera's Portrait of Juleen Compton

"Something a little more accurate than fiction": The Mexico of John Dos Passos

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"Pretty darn swell" - John Dos Passos in Mexico

A Traveler, not a Tourist: Sybille Bedford's Mexican Sojourn

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¡Hola Papi! Life as an Authentic Latino

"Soar, Crimson Banner!" Mayakovsky in Mexico

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"Arrested for the size of my heart" - Jack Kerouac's Mexico City Blues

©2026 by Philip Gambone.

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