Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Nicol s Medina Mora's debut novel blends the Latin American literary traditions of Roberto Bola o and Fernanda Melchor with the autofiction of US writers like Ben Lerner and Teju Cole to wrestle with identity, privilege, history, and the questions: Who is a Mexican writer writing for? Do we make our own history, or does history make us? What is the relationship between literature and life? Sebasti n lived a childhood of privilege among the Mexican elite. Now in his twenties, he has a degree from Yale, an American girlfriend, and a slot in the University of Iowa's MFA program.
But Sebasti n's well-curated bi-national life begins to fall apart, shaken by the Trump administration's increasingly stringent restrictions on immigrants, his mother's terminal cancer, the cracks in his relationships with his American girlfriend, and his father's humiliation and forced resignation at the hands of Mexico's new president. As he struggles through the Trump and L pez Obrador years, Sebasti n must confront his father's role in the Mexican drug war, his whiteness in Mexican contexts even as he is often perceived as a person of color in the US, his place in a Mexican elite that has ruled the country since 1521, and the contemporary literary cultures he is both scornful of and desperately want to be part of.
Am rica del Norte is a novel of vast ambition that explores whiteness, power, immigration, and the history of Mexican literature--from the 17th century letters of a peevishly polymathic Spanish colonizer to the contemporary packaging of Mexican lit for a US audience--to wrestle with the contradictory relationship between two countries bound by geography and torn apart by politics.
Synopsis
Moving between New York City, Mexico City, and Iowa City, a young member of the Mexican elite sees his life splinter in a centuries-spanning debut that blends the Latin American traditions of Roberto Bola o and Fernanda Melchor with the autofiction of US writers like Ben Lerner and Teju Cole. Sebasti n lived a childhood of privilege in Mexico City. Now in his twenties, he has a degree from Yale, an American girlfriend, and a slot in the University of Iowa's MFA program.
But Sebasti n's life is shaken by the Trump administration's restrictions on immigrants, his mother's terminal cancer, the cracks in his relationship with his American girlfriend, and his father's forced resignation at the hands of Mexico's new president. As he struggles through the Trump and L pez Obrador years, Sebasti n must confront his father's role in the Mexican drug war and his whiteness in Mexican contexts even as he is often perceived as a person of color in the US. As he does so, the novel moves through centuries of Mexican literary history, from the 17th century letters of a peevishly polymathic Spanish colonizer to the contemporary packaging of Mexican writers for a US audience.
Split between the US and Mexico, this stunning debut explores whiteness, power, immigration, and the history of Mexican literature, to wrestle with the contradictory relationship between two countries bound by geography and torn apart by politics.