SOURCE: Leal, Luis. “The Early Writings.” In Mariano Azuela, pp. 38-52. New York: Twayne, 1971.

In the following essay, Leal reviews the writings of many of Azuela's precursors, moving on to provide an overview of Azuela's writings before the revolution, including several short stories and his first four novels.

I Azuela's Precursors

During the colonial period the novel in Mexico, unlike poetry, did not flourish. It is true that there were some works that contain narrative elements, such as the Sirgueros de la Virgen (Songs in Praise of the Virgin, 1620) by Francisco Bramón, a pastoral romance with a slender narrative thread; Los infortunios de Alonso Ramírez (1680), a historical narrative structured like a picaresque novel; and La portentosa vida de la Muerte (1792) by Joaquín Bolaños, in which personified Death relates her own life. But it was not until 1816 that José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi...