Subterranean Space in Contemporary Mexico City Literature

This book studies the role of subterranean spaces in literary works about Mexico City. It analyzes how underground spaces such as the subway, the sewage system, tunnels, crypts, and the subsoil itself relate to the whole of the city in a body of works published after 1985, the year of the deadliest earthquake in the capital’s history. The texts belong to the most important genres in urban literature (the novel, the short story, and the crónica) and demonstrate the crucial role played by the underground in contemporary imaginings of the megalopolis, as it condenses and confronts the tensions that run through them. This central idea is developed through four analytical chapters focusing on the political, ecological, historical, and aesthetic dimension of subterranean imaginaries.

Liesbeth François is a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven, Belgium, with a scholarship from the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). She has published on contemporary Latin American fiction and literary theory. She is the author of Andares vacilantes. La caminata en la obra narrativa de Sergio Chejfec (2018).