Caistor Nicholas

Mexico City has always been a seat of empire. With its grandiose pretentions, sheer swagger, and staggering proportions, it gives the impression of power exercised over great time and distances. And yet this power has frequently been contested, lending the city a tough, battle-hardened look. At the same time, life in the Mexican capital can be carefree and intoxicating, and the city continues to offer any visitor not only glimpses of past grandeur, but of the fascinating wealth of the culture of Mexico today. This book explores how the city has grown and evolved from the Tenochtitlan city-state of the Aztecs to the capital of the Spanish empire's "New Spain," French intervention, revolution, and the newly branded CDMX. Nick Caistor leads us through centuries of history and into the material city of today: from recently constructed museums and shopping malls, to neighborhoods where age-old traditions still appear to be the norm. Whether sampling ice cream at Xochimilco, watching freestyle wrestling at the Arena Mexico, or savoring long Mexican breakfasts, Nick Caistor reveals why Mexico City continues to fascinate and beguile us.

When Octavio Paz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990, it was in recognition of the fact that for many years he had been the pre-eminent poet in the Spanish speaking world. His work takes the traditions of Mexican poetry as well as French and Spanish influences, and adds what he himself read of his contemporaries in Mexico, Britain and France, in particular, the Surrealists. But Paz was also a great polemicist and essayist, described by V. S. Naipaul as a kind of Mexican George Orwell'. He made a huge contribution to intellectual debates on Mexican art and identity, its connections with the USA, and the European heritage of Latin America. Nick Caistor examines how Paz, born during the Mexican Revolution, participated in the attempts to bring a utopian revolution to his country, which was emerging into the modern world after decades of repressive rule. At the same time, he was wary of ideology imposing itself on art and always sought an independent position. Later, Paz lived in the USA, Europe and, as a member of the Mexican diplomatic service, in India, returning to his home country in 1968 where he became an influential critic of the regime in power. As well as examining Paz's intellectual adventures, Caistor relates his fascinating private life his marriages and friendships with leading figures of Mexican and Latin American cultural life, as well as with important literary figures in France, Britain, the United States and Italy. Caistor reveals how Paz's poetry and other writing were always intimately related to the circumstances of his life, and shows how his ideas and poetic expression were inspired by the events in which he was involved.