02454cam a2200349 4500 514397111 TxAuBib 20211214120000.0 210121s2021||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2021001794 9780811230957 PAP 10.95 0811230953 PAP 10.95 TxAuBib eng spa Pacheco, Josae Emilio. Batallas en el desierto English. Battles in the desert [BOOK] / Josae Emilio Pacheco ; translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver ; with an afterword by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes. 40th-anniversary edition. New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2021. 80 pages ; 19 cm. Originally published as Las batallas en el desierto by Ediciones Era, S.A., Mexico City. "This landmark novella -one of the central texts of Mexican literature, is eerily relevant to our current dark times- offers a child's-eye view of a society beset by dictators, disease, and natural disasters, set in 'the year of polio, foot-and- mouth disease, floods.' A middle-class boy grows up in a world of children aping adults (mock wars at recess pit Arabs against Jews), where a child's left to ponder 'how many evils and catastrophes we have yet to witness.' When Carlos laments the cruelty and corruption, the evils of a vicious class system, his older brother answers: 'So what, we are living up to our ears in shit anyway under Miguel Alemaan's regime,' with 'the face of El Señor Presidente everywhere: incessant, private abuse.' Sound familiar? Woven into this coming-of-age saga is the terribly intense love Carlos cherishes for his friend's young mother, which has the effect of driving the general cruelties further under the reader's skin. The acclaimed translator Katherine Silver has greatly revised her original translation, enlivening afresh this remarkable work"-- Provided by publisher. 20211214. Boys Mexico Fiction. Intergenerational relations Fiction. First loves Fiction. Mexico Fiction. Coming of age. Short stories. Silver, Katherine, translator. Melchor, Fernanda, 1982-, writer of afterword.