An Impossible Task? Héctor Perea's México, crónica en espiral and the Problems of Writing a Travel-Chronicle of Contemporary Mexico City

Abstract

This article foregrounds the difficulties inherent in writing a travel-chronicle of contemporary Mexico City at a time when the city itself has been ‘done to death’ by other writers and the genre of the travel-chronicle has fallen from literary grace. Taking a good example of what can be done under these circumstances, Héctor Perea's, México, crónica en espiral (Mexico City, A Spiral-Shaped Chronicle) (1996), it briefly examines evidence of the writer's difficulties, and then goes on to analyse his strategies for breathing new life into both genre and subject matter. In particular, it explores the more metaphorical interpretation of travel and travel writing inherent in the ‘dimensions’ of Perea's spiral-shaped chronicle, which takes the reader on a journey through the space of dreams and memories, fiction and poetic imagery, academic speculation and virtual reality. It also measures his success in balancing tradition and innovation, and evaluates whether the resultant text might constitute a postmodern form of the genre.