Kirjahaku

Cristina, the young protagonist of Tree of Desire, and her little brother Joaquín run away from a home that is outwardly normal, but inwardly disfunctional. Lost on the streets of Mexico City, they confront some of the most terrifying aspects of city life. Or is it all a dream? The story suggests, without confirming, that sexual abuse has driven Cristina to her desperate escape. But is it an escape? Are they awakening from a dream, or reentering a nightmare? Serafín, too, is lost in the city. Searching for his father who has deserted the family, he is virtually helpless amid the city dangers. Serafín finds compassion in surprising places, but will he survive to return to his mother and their rural village? These two novels by one of Mexico's premier writers illuminate many aspects of contemporary Mexican life. Solares describes Mexico's different social classes with Dickensian realism. His focus on young protagonists, unusual in Mexican literature, opens a window onto problems of children's vulnerability that know no national borders. At the same time, his use of elements of the fantastic and the paranormal, and his evocative writing style, make reading his novels a most pleasurable experience.

Abelardo redacta sus recuerdos de juventud, que est n entrelazados con la intervenci n norteamericana de 1847. M xico, fines del siglo XIX. Abelardo escribe sus recuerdos de juventud, ineludiblemente entrelazados con la intervenci n norteamericana de 1847. Atestigua el proceso creativo su esposa, una mujer liberal que cuestiona y motiva a Abelardo, y es uno de sus principales motivos para escribir. Es sabido lo que pas entonces: la mitad del territorio mexicano pas a manos del incipiente imperio; hubo episodios heroicos y episodios vergonzosos, pr ceres, arribistas, traidores. Pero tambi n, en medio de la cat strofe nacional, vocaciones, voluntades y pasiones individuales, como la de la pareja que rememora y la del doctor Urruch a, obsesionado por los g rmenes. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Abelardo chronicles the memories of his youth and the US invasion of 1847. Mexico, late nineteenth century. Abelardo is writing the story of his life, which is inextricably bound to the US invasion of 1847. Witnessing this creative process is his wife, a liberal woman who both questions and motivates him and is a driving force behind his writing. The history of the US invasion is well known: Mexico lost half its territory to the imperial power to its north in a war filled with episodes of heroic resistance and shameful defeat. In addition to legends of patriots, upstarts and traitors, however, the national catastrophe also gave rise to individual vocations and passions. Abelardo's memoirs record his personal struggles as well as those of Dr. Urruch a and his obsession with germs.

No puedo menos que felicitar a Solares por haberme hecho legible y soportable este delirio y adem s por sugerir la posibilidad de que estas formas y estasim genes tremendas tengan un mensaje simb lico ulterior. -Salvador Elizondo, Unomasuno Descrito por primera vez en el a o de 1813, el delirium tremens nunca hab a sido abordado desde un horizonte literario y descriptivo, tal como lo ha hecho Ignacio Solares --con indudable originalidad y talento-- en esta obra. El delirium tremens es un conjunto de s ntomas que se desarrollan en el alcoh lico cr nico despu s de la interrupci n brusca de una ingesti n prolongada e intensa de bebidas embriagantes. Las alucinaciones visuales son quiz el s ntoma m s dram tico de este cuadro, y es justamente esa esfera sensoperceptiva alterada del alcoh lico la puerta de entrada por la que Solares se introduce. El reto: aventurarse en la profundidad del sujeto y contemplar c mo la experiencia alucinatoria puede cambiar su trayectoria existencial. -Del pr logo del Dr. Jos Antonio Elizondo L pez, creador y excoordinador del Programa de Rehabilitaci n de Alcoh licos del Hospital Psiqui trico del IMSS ENGLISH DESCRIPTION "I can't help but congratulate Solares for making this delirium readable and bearable for me, and for suggesting the possibility that these tremendous forms and images carry a deeper symbolic message." -Salvador Elizondo, Unomasuno First described in 1813, delirium tremens had never before been explored from such a literary and descriptive perspective as it is here by Ignacio Solares--with undeniable originality and talent. Delirium tremens is a set of symptoms that develop in a chronic alcoholic after the abrupt interruption of a prolonged and intense intake of alcohol. The visual hallucinations are perhaps the most dramatic symptom of this condition, and it is precisely through that altered sensory-perceptual sphere of the alcoholic that Solares enters. The challenge: to venture into the depths of the self and observe how the hallucinatory experience can alter a person's existential path. -From the prologue by Dr. Jos Antonio Elizondo L pez, creator and former coordinator of the Alcohol Rehabilitation Program at the IMSS Psychiatric Hospital