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New titles Juan de la Cuesta-
A play based on Niebla by Miguel de Unamuno
into the Mist by Edward H. Friedman
Into the Mist is an adaptation for the stage of Miguel de Unamuno’s 1914 novel Niebla [Mist]. Miguel de Unamuno was one of the most
prolific and influential Spanish writers of his time. He cultivated a wide variety of genres: novel, short story, poetry, drama, and essay. Sharing
his personal reflections and his spiritual crises with the public, Unamuno often becomes an author-as-character within his fictional and
nonfictional texts. Whereas literary realism tends to underplay differences between reality and fiction, certain types of literature flaunt what
can be called their “literariness,” their self-referential qualities. Niebla, philosophical and ingenious, is arguably the most complex of Unamuno’s
narrative ventures. Cervantes and Don Quixote seem to be on Unamuno’s mind as he composes an innovative form of fiction, which
emphasizes the artistic process and the act of creation, and which he labels the nivola.
Unamuno fashions an intriguing system of frames. Niebla opens with a prologue by the protagonist’s fictional friend and writer, Víctor
Goti, who is invited by Unamuno to comment on the text. Not wholly satisfied with Goti’s assertions, Unamuno answers with a brief postprologue,
and the action proceeds from there. Niebla was published seven years before the first performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters
in Search of an Author, and it clearly anticipates the striking and acclaimed self-referentiality of the Italian play. Into the Mist reflects the
spirit and the self-consciousness of Niebla. Edward Friedman has faced the challenge of bringing the metafictional thrust and the profound
and bittersweet abstractions of the nivola to center stage.
ISBN 978-1-58871-191-5 (PB) $19.95
Francisco urondo y su poesía, un arma cargada de futuro
Hernán Fontanet
A few months after the bloody military coup in Argentina on March 24, 1976 that began seven years of brutal military rule and
state-sponsored terror, a remarkable intellectual and inexpert guerrilla fighter named Francisco “Paco” Urondo (b. 1930) was sent to
Mendoza. His mission was to strengthen the resistance, which in the 1970s was one of the most powerful guerilla organizations in
Latin America—the Montoneros. A few days later, he was killed, adding his name to a list of no less than 30 poets who paid for their
commitment to the revolution with their lives.
By 1976, Urondo had (1) published more than ten books of poetry, an essay, a novel, short stories, an anthology of Argentine
poems, and had his plays staged, written teleplays, movie scripts and lyrics for songs; (2) become a well-recognized journalist who had
contributed to numerous newspapers and magazines; (3) won national and international awards for his work; (4) served as Director of
the Contemporary Art Department at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral (1957), as General Director of Culture in the Ministry of
Culture in Santa Fe (1958), and as Director of the Department of Literature at the University of Buenos Aires (1973); and (5), most
importantly, been recognized as an active member of the underground guerilla group, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, in 1973, when he was arrested.
Schmidt-Cruz says: “It is important to note that Professor Fontanet’s book fills a significant lacuna in the scholarship on the work of this worthy yet understudied
writer. A search in the MLA International Bibliography reveals a mere six entries on Francisco Urondo, all journal articles written between 1977 and 2009.
Indeed, it was high time that a comprehensive study be done of Urondo’s poetic production, and in this sense, Fontanet’s work makes a highly significant contribution
to the field of Latin American literary studies. What is more, readers of this book will come away with, not only a deepened understanding of the man and his writings,
but also of a key period in recent Argentine political, social, and intellectual history.”
Diego de Landa
relación de las cosas de Yucatán
J. Victor McGlone
ISBN 978-1-58871-213-4, (PB) $26.95
The Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán—a sixteenth-century work by Fray Diego de Landa—is the most detailed account in existence of life in
the Yucatán peninsula before the Spanish conquista and its aftermath. No other document so thoroughly describes the Mayans. Landa’s text
contains much information on the Mayas’ cultural customs, on their holidays, religious practices, language, and calendar, on how their lives
changed once the Spaniards arrived, and on the region’s plants and animals.
Much of what Landa wrote was based on his personal observations and interactions with the local people. He also relied heavily on
witnesses. Landa was able to question these people, members of the oldest Maya families, representatives of which still survived at the beginning
of this century, the Xiu, ancient rulers of Maní in the north-west of the peninsula, the Cocum and the Chel. The resulting combination
of personal observations, of interactions with the local people, and of witness interviews makes the Relación a uniquely rich text.
Landa’s Relación de las cosas de Yucatán is about as complete a treatment of Mayan religion as we are likely to ever have. Landa’s writings also
are our main contemporary source for Mayan history, without which our collective knowledge of Mayan ethnology would be devastatingly small.
Landa also created a valuable record of the Mayan writing system, which was later to prove instrumental in the later decipherment of the writing system.
Landa asked his informants to write down the glyphic symbols corresponding to each of the letters of the (Spanish) alphabet, in the belief that there ought to be a
one-to-one correspondence between them. The results were faithfully reproduced by Landa, although he recognized that the set contained apparent inconsistencies
and duplicates, which he was unable to explain—in the mid-twentieth century, it was realized that it was not a transcription of an alphabet, as Landa and others had
originally supposed, but was rather a syllabary.
You can see that there is an abundance of fascinating material in this book.
ISBN 978-1-58871-205-9 (PB) EDICIONES CRíTICAS #65, $22.95
18 Juan de la cuesta — Hispanic MonograpHs 2012 www.Juandelacuesta.coM