The Magic Lantern: Having a Ball and Christmas Eve

by Jose Tomas de Cuellar, Margaret Carson (Translator), Margo Glantz (Editor)

Overview

José Tomas de Cuéllar (1830-1894) was a Mexican writer noted for his sharp sense of humor and gift for caricature. Having a Ball and Christmas Eve are two novellas written in the costumbrista style, made popular in the mid-nineteenth century by the periodical press in which these sketches of contemporary manners were first published. The stories are a sensitive reflection of the effects of modernization brought by an authoritarian regime dedicated to order and progress. Christmas Eve describes a volatile middle class in which people pursue pleasure and entertainment without regard to morality. Having a Ball depicts women and their dedication to fashion. It is through them that Cuellar examines a society susceptible to foreign values, the importation of which radically altered the face of Mexico and its traditional customs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199938988
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/16/2000
Series:	Library of Latin America
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Margaret Carson has translated the work of several Spanish writers and won the 1994 Endowment Fund award from the American Literary Translators Association. Margo Glantz is Professor of Literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and is former Director of The Fine Arts Institute of Mexico. She is a well-known literary critic, the award-winning author of several novels, and the first woman to be inducted into the Mexican Academy of Letters.

Editorial Reviews

"With this new series by Oxford University Press, the library of Latin America is literally open to North Americans and English speakers everywhere."—Julia Alvarez (on the series)

"With the Library of Latin America, Oxford has opened up a new fronteir that may prove as exciting and enigmatic as the continent itself."—The Herald, South Carolina (on the series)

From the Publisher