Mexico in a Nutshell 3: Mexico City

COST: $30.00USD per person

With more than nine million inhabitants today, Mexico City is one of the most diverse cultural centres on the planet. Throughout its long history of more than 700 years, it has been the capital of the Mexica Empire on a lake, of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, of one of the first independent republics in America, of two empires, of the fantastic libertarian feat of its revolution and of the strange authoritarian experiment that emerged from it, which subdued the country for 70 years, under the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Today it is the capital of a country plunged in serious problems: violence, drug trafficking, migration, foreign capital interference, etc., but also of a country with many hopes and capacities, both social and economic.

Through this "City of Palaces" paraded characters such as Moctezuma, Hernán Cortés, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Alexander von Humboldt, Maximilian I of Mexico, Benito Juárez, Antonieta Rivas Mercado, Porfirio Díaz, Frida Kahlo, Leon Trotsky, André Breton, Luis Buñuel, María Izquierdo, William Burroughs, Che Guevara or Leonora Carrington, among many other artists, politicians, spies, scientists, social fighters and a long list of unique characters. We could venture that the whole world, that is, the history of the world, has passed through Mexico City and has transformed it. In turn, these geological layers of history are visible today in its streets, novels, personal stories, and art.

Each week in this 10-session course, we will read and comment on some literary works that best describe this city. We will also learn about its history, from its founding to the present day, through references to documents, art, cinema, chronicles and biographies. We will narrate the life of the Mexican capital as if it were that of a literary character that evolves over the centuries to give us a plausible picture of its current reality.

We will read works by the best writers who have had a relationship with Mexico City, from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to Juan Villoro, Roberto Bolaño, Cristina Rivera Garza, Carlos Fuentes, Fernando del Paso or José Emilio Pacheco, among others.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:
ROBERTO FRÍAS - WRITER

Born in Mexico City, Frías was educated as a journalist, literary critic and cultural manager. Between 2000 and 2010, he lived in Barcelona and worked as an editor, literary translator and consultant for some of the most prestigious publishing houses and agencies, such as Anagrama, Penguin Random House, Atalanta, Galaxia Gutenberg or Acantilado. He has translated the works of Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Hanif Kureishi and Francisco Goldman, among others.

Frías has been a contributor to cultural supplements such as Cultura/s, of La Vanguardia; Confabulario, of El Universal or El Ángel, of Reforma; and magazines such as Letras Libres, SoHo, Revista de libros, Chilango and National Geographic Traveler, where he published essays, reviews and reports on film, literature, gastronomy, travel, as well as social and scientific topics. For Canal 22, Mexico's cultural television channel, he wrote the weekly column of chronicles about Mexico City, La Región.

Frías main literary interests are short stories and novels, but he also writes essays and chronicles. In the audiovisual field, he has written an opera libretto, the script for the experimental film Seis, and was director and screenwriter of the television series México 1521, hoy, and the podcast Mondiacult 2022: Las conferencias de Chapultepec, to mention a few examples.

-

In Mexico, Frías has received, on two occasions, the prestigious grant from the National System of Art Creators, awarded by the National Fund for Culture and the Arts. He has been invited to the Writer's Centre, Norwich, UK; Yaddo, New York; the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, Banff Centre, Canada and the International Writers' Residency at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.

Frías has given workshops and conferences in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Germany, China and Spain.