Horizontal Vertigo

A City Called Mexico

Horizontal Vertigo
Alfred Macadam, Juan Villoro
RRP:
NZ$ 75.00
Our Price:
NZ$ 60.00
Hardback
h235 x 156mm - 416pg
23 Mar 2021 US
International import eta 7-19 days
9781524748883
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city. Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city' s cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today--one of the world' s leading cultural and financial centers. In this deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of topics: "Living in the City," "City Characters," and "Shocks, Crossings, and Ceremonies. " What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City' s genius loci, its spirit of place.
"Deeply learned . . . Along his leisurely, illuminating path, Villoro delivers an essential update of Octavio Paz' s The Labyrinth of Solitude (1950). He can be both brittle and funny . . . Celebrating food, wandering through earthquake-struck ruins, reflecting on literary heroes, Villoro makes an excellent Virgil. An unparalleled portrait of a city in danger of growing past all reasonable limits. " --Kirkus Reviews [starred review] "This is a stimulating portrait of one of the world' s most mind-bending metropolises. " --Publishers Weekly "Villoro applies his witty and incisive pen to the monster that is Mexico City . . . Villoro' s voice is engaging, and the subject matter, fascinating . . . An unusual and rewarding read for all who love or are intrigued by Mexico City. " --Booklist "This is Villoro' s masterpiece . . . His great achievement in Horizontal Vertigo resides in his ability to understand and make the city known through different characters, occupations, and beliefs. Although many writers have been interested in Mexico City, such as Carlos Monsivais and Carlos Fuentes, Juan Villoro finds a new, postmodern way of portraying the contemporary city. " --World Literature Today "One of the ten best nonfiction books of the year. A superheroic effort to tame the urban chaos that was born of an ecocide: the drying up of a lake. No city is wilder, more monstrous than Mexico' s capital. And few writers know it with more precision and passion than Juan Villoro. " --The New York Times en Espanol
Born in Mexico City in 1956, JUAN VILLORO is Mexico' s preeminent novelist. Author of a half-dozen prizewinning novels, Villoro is also a journalist. In 2004 he received the Herralde Prize for his novel El testigo.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9781524748883
Published: 23 Mar 2021
Published In: United States
Imprint: Ballantine Books Inc
Publisher: Random House USA Inc
Format: Hardback
Height: 235mm
Width: 156mm
Pages: 416

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