Borderlands revisited: La frontera norte in contemporary Mexican fiction

Abstract

This article discusses Mexican literary interventions on the Mexican-US-border, during the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century. Linked to the question what qualifies today's literature written in the border region on the border as subject matter, it revisits the depiction of transfronterizo culture and borderlands in three novels written by Mexican authors of two generations: Luis Humberto Crostwaite's La luna siempre será un amor difícil (1994), Heriberto Yépez' A.B.U.R.T.O. (2005) and Yuri Herrera's Señales que precederán al fin del mundo (2009). The article starts with a short introduction into the literature of the northern border, sketching out the determining views on the border/different approaches to the border space – Chicana/o views and the counter move/reaction from the Mexican side. In this discussion, Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La frontera plays a crucial role. Anzaldúa's border thinking captured the dynamics at the border and of the border connected to the embodied, lived experience (history, indigenous presence, sexuality), the act of remembering/recordar /remembrar the manifold affiliations through the flesh. Although Gloria Anzaldúa's text is not at the forefront of the analysis, it has aesthetic and conceptual repercussions in all three novels.