The pieces collected in
Mexican Writers on Writing
present a vibrant cross-section of Mexican authors’ thoughts on the written word, from Carlos Fuentes’s instructional Decalogue, to Bernardo de Balbuena’s eloquent dissertation on the beauty of poetry, to Octavio Paz’s analysis of the essence of translation. From the literature of colonialism and conquest to contemporary writing, these writers reveal intimate views on what it is to be a writer, and explore just how flexible the boundaries of what we have termed "literature" can be.