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Mexico is a major literary exporter. Although a vast minority of books sold in the US are translations of foreign fiction, Spanish language writers have attained great renowned within American publishing circles. These writers include the Chilean-born Roberto Bolaño and the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa. 

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When I was teaching early literature classes at San Jacinto College, I became dismayed at the use of strictly American texts--however diverse. Because many of the students identified as "Mexican" or "Latin American", I thought it beneficial to chose a Mexican text, translated for an American audience. 

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This allowed me to better connect Americans to a thoroughly foreign voice, which represented ironically an culturally imperial metropole--Mexico City--which is itself a remote entity to Mexican-American and Latino-American students. 

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It also allowed me to talk about the differences between the Mexican Spanish of the novel, the English of the translation, and the varieties of Spanish and English spoken by those students. 

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In some sense the class was (is) geared in part to the Spanish and Spanglish speakers and culturally Latino-Americans. However, I think that most of the course would be accessible to all college aged students. 

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The course focuses on only two mandatory readings: Álvaro Enrigue's Sudden Death and Nicolas Medina Mora's "Two Weeks in the Capital". It is meant to situate an ancient story in contemporary or future terms. For instance, both text describe the Mexica (or Aztecs), whom historians agree came to the Valley of Mexico from the north. What is now the American-Mexican border and Southeast US can be reconsidered as Mexican homeland. In this way (and in many many others) the students will build from these readings alternate histories, presents and futures. 

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