Narrative
Battles in the Desert
Las batallas en el desierto
José Emilio Pacheco · 1980
Synopsis
Carlos, now an adult, remembers his childhood in Mexico City in the late 1940s, under the presidency of Miguel Alemán, when the colonia Roma was filling with buildings and Coca-Cola was driving out the fresh fruit waters of old. As a schoolboy, he befriends Jim, a classmate. At Jim's home, he meets Mariana, Jim's young mother, and falls desperately in love with her, in secret.
Context
The text first appears on 7 June 1980 in Sábado, the supplement of the daily unomásuno; Era publishes it in book form the following year, and the author keeps revising it until his death. The filmmaker Alberto Isaac made it into the film Mariana, Mariana in 1987, and the group Café Tacvba a song in 1992. Katherine Silver's English translation appears in 1987, the French one with La Différence.
Who it is for
A short narrative of about seventy pages, in simple language, which one reads in one sitting; translated into French and English.
Prizes and reception
A long-seller since its publication and required reading in many Mexican high schools; the best-known prose narrative by its author.
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