Author | Luis Zapata Quiroz |
---|---|
Language | Spanish |
Set in | Mexico City |
Publisher | Grijalbo |
Publication date | 1979 |
Publication place | Mexico |
Media type | Novel |
Awards | Juan Grijalbo Prize |
El vampiro de la colonia Roma (English: The Vampire of Colonia Roma) is a novel by Mexican writer Luis Zapata Quiroz. Some critics consider it to be the definitive work of LGBT literature in Mexico. [1] Its publication inspired a change in direction regarding the scorn and silence around homosexuality in literature. Since El vampire de la colonia Roma was published, other authors have taken on the subject of homosexuality without hesitation. [2] The novel was published in 1979 after winning the Juan Grijalbo Prize.
Adonis García is the nickname for a gay male prostitute in Mexico City. The book tells the story of his life though fictional interviews with a writer who records his extremely long monologue on magnetic tape. García talks about his first memories through 25 years of his life, when the recording ends.
El vampire de la colonia Roma is a picaresque novel [3] with an erotic theme. It is written in the form of a monologue beginning with recordings on magnetic tape that Luis Zapata obtained from an interview with Osiris Pérez. According to León Guillermo Gutiérrez, it shed light on: [4]
The hypocrisy of Mexican society, in which a lot of effort had been taken to hide in the corner of the closet: the practical, everyday life of homosexuality in all social spheres. Zapata does not settle for coming out of the closet, he takes it and travels by foot, car, bus, or motorcycle through the streets, avenues, parks, restaurants, and movie theaters of the big city and other latitudes of the country’s geography.
Its publication provoked a national, and even international, scandal over its homosexual content. The scandal in Mexico, according to José Joaquín Blanco, responded "to the sanctimoniousness that thrives in the government, in the press, in some businesses, in the academy, and luckily it did not find its echo." [5] Some prestigious writers, like Juan Rulfo and Sergio Magaña, [5] attacked the book without having read it, going as far as to recommend selling the book in plastic bags to prevent people from leafing through what was considered a "pornographic" text. [6] Today, El vampire de la colonia Roma is considered a classic work in gay Mexican and Latin American literature.
In 2009, to celebrate 30 years since the book's initial publication, various commemorative festivities were held in Mexico City: at the XXX International Book Fair (Feria Internacional del Libro in the Palacio de Minería, at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. [7] [8]
In the United States, a translation was published under the title Adonis García, A Picaresque Novel in 1981 [9] and it received favorable critiques given that—as noted by the author, Luis Zapata, himself—the U.S. did not have the same prejudices nor Mexico's macho tradition. [10] In the United Kingdom, however, the work was confiscated by authorities for being "indecent, pornographic, and obscene." [11]
Colonia Roma, also called La Roma or simply, Roma, is a district located in the Cuauhtémoc borough of Mexico City just west of the city's historic center. The area comprises two colonias: Roma Norte and Roma Sur, divided by Coahuila street.
Antonio Alatorre Vergara was a Mexican writer, philologist and translator, famous due to his influential academic essays about Spanish literature, and because of his book Los 1001 años de la lengua española.
Gaucho literature, also known as gauchesco ("gauchoesque") genre was a literary movement purporting to use the language of the gauchos, comparable to the American cowboy, and reflecting their mentality. Although earlier works have been identified as gauchoesque, the movement particularly thrived from the 1870s to 1920s in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil after which the movement petered out, although some works continued to be written. Gauchoesque works continue to be read and studied as a significant part of Argentine literary history.
The Xavier Villaurrutia Award is a prestigious literary prize given in Mexico, to a Latin American writer published in Mexico. Founded in 1955, it was named in memory of Xavier Villaurrutia.
The Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro was a historic Mexican rock festival held on September 11–12, 1971, on the shores of Lake Avándaro near the Avándaro Golf Club, in a hamlet called Tenantongo, near the town of Valle de Bravo in the central State of Mexico. The festival, organized by brothers Eduardo and Alfonso Lopez Negrete's company Promotora Go, McCann Erickson executive and sports promoter Justino Compean and Telesistema Mexicano producer Luis de Llano Macedo, took place at the height of La Onda and celebrated life, youth, ecology, music, peace and free love, has been compared to the American Woodstock festival for its psychedelic music, counterculture imagery and artwork, and open drug use. A milestone in the history of Mexican rock music, the festival has drawn anywhere from an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 concertgoers.
María del Rosario Gutiérrez Eskildsen was a Mexican lexicographer, linguist, educator, and poet who is remembered for her studies on the regional peculiarities of speech in her home state of Tabasco as well as for her pioneering work as a teacher and pedagogue in Tabasco and throughout Mexico. She has at times been described as Tabasco's first woman "professionist".
Francisco de Asís Monterde García Icazbalceta was a prolific and multifaceted Mexican writer whose career spanned over fifty years. He was an important promoter of the arts and culture in Mexico in the years following the Revolution.
Salón de la Plástica Mexicana is an institution dedicated to the promotion of Mexican contemporary art. It was established in 1949 to expand the Mexican art market. Its first location was in historic center of the city but today it mostly operates out of a building in Colonia Roma. The institution is run by a membership of almost four hundred recognized artists and holds multiple exhibitions each year. Although it operates autonomously, it is part of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura.
Julio Jiménez Rueda was a Mexican lawyer, writer, playwright and diplomat.
In Mexican culture, it is now relatively common to see gay characters represented on Mexican sitcoms and soap operas (telenovelas) and being discussed on talk shows. However, representations of male homosexuals vary widely. They often include stereotypical versions of male effeminacy meant to provide comic relief as well as representations meant to increase social awareness and generate greater acceptance of homosexuality. However, efforts to represent lesbians have remained nearly non-existent, which might be related to the more general invisibility of lesbian subcultures in Mexico.
Luis Zapata Quiroz was one of the most prominent gay writers in Mexican literature.
Guillermo Ceniceros is a Mexican painter and muralist, best known for his mural work in Mexico City, as well as his figurative easel work. He began his mural painting career as an assistant to mural painters such as Federico Cantú, Luis Covarrubias and then David Alfaro Siqueiros who was a mentor and a key influence. Ceniceros is the most notable of Siqueiros' assistants. While he has experimented with abstract expression, his easel work mostly classifies as figurativism and is influenced by the geometrical construct of Mexican muralism. He has had over 300 individual and collective exhibitions in Mexico and the International stage. His work has been recognized by the Mexican Ministry of Culture and several of its institutions. He has painted over 20 large scale Mural Paintings with some of the most notable being the large scale work for the Legislative Palace of San Lazaro as well as his murals in the Metro Subway System. He is a member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana. In 1995, the State of Durango, Ceniceros' native state, opened to the public the Guillermo Ceniceros Art Museum within the oversight of the Ministry of Culture. Ceniceros has been reviewed by notable critics such as Berta Taracena, Raquel Tibol, Alaide Foppa, Graciela Kartofel, José Angel Leyva and Eduardo Blackaller among others. There are several publications about his work including a vast review of his art life endeavors developed by the Ministries of Culture of Durango and Nuevo León. He is married to the artist Esther González and lives in his studio house in the Colonia Roma of Mexico City.
Laura Méndez de Cuenca, was a Mexican writer and poet.
Tarsicio Herrera Zapién is a Mexican writer, researcher and academic, specializing in the culture and classical literature. He studies the works of Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz, as well as music composition and recovery of classical musicological works.
Carolina Amor de Fournier (1908–1993) was a Mexican editor, writer and translator. She was a founder of the Mexican scientific publishing company, La Prensa Médica Mexicana, and for many years, served as its director and editor. She was also co-founder in 1965 of Siglo XXI Editores. In 1980, she received the Merito Editorial. Born in Mexico City, her parents were Carolina Schmidtlein y García Teruel and Emmanuel Amor Subervielle. Amor had six siblings. Her sister, Guadalupe Amor, was a poet, her sister, Inés Amor an important Mexican galerist and her niece, Elena Poniatowska Amor, was a writer. Amor died in Mexico City.
María del Carmen Millán (1914–1982) was a Mexican academic, writer and lecturer who became the first woman admitted to the Mexican Academy of Letters. Her work to preserve the literary heritage of Mexico was recognized both internationally and nationally.
The Empire of Dracula is a 1967 Mexican horror mystery thriller film directed by Federico Curiel and starring Lucha Villa, César del Campo and Eric del Castillo.
This article lists events occurring in Mexico during the year 2021. The article lists the most important political leaders during the year at both federal and state levels and will include a brief year-end summary of major social and economic issues. Cultural events, including major sporting events, are also listed. For a more expansive list of political events, see 2021 in Mexican politics and government.
LGBT literature in Mexico began to flourish beginning in the 1960s, but came into its own in the 1980s. However, until then, homosexuality had rarely been addressed in literary works, except as something ridiculous, condemnable, or perverted, thanks to the homophobia that dominates Mexican society. In 1975, the activist and theater director Nancy Cárdenas and the writers Carlos Monsiváis and Luis González de Alba published the first manifesto in defense of homosexuals, published in the magazine ¡Siempre! and, in 1979, they organized the first gay pride march. Although some notable novels preceded it, the novel that marked a true change in direction regarding the scorn and silence around homosexuality was El vampiro de la colonia Roma by Luis Zapata Quiroz, published in 1978. After its publication, many authors had the courage to follow this path and take on the subject of homosexuality without reservations. The 1970s then marked the beginning of a change in perspective in Mexican society with respect to homosexuality thanks to greater recognition and visibility of gay authors.
The unique chronology of the homosexual novel reveals the strong movement of coming out of the closet [...]. It’s evident that the 70s have proven to be a watershed at least in regards to civil life.
Eduardo "Lalo" Ramírez Velázquez, best known as Eduardo España, is a Mexican telenovela, stage and film actor, and comedian. He is best known for his character Márgara Francisca, his role as Germán Martínez in the television series Vecinos, voicing Evaristo in the Leyendas film series and being a former member of Otro Rollo.