SOURCE: “Rosario Castellanos' ‘Guests in August’: Critical Realism and the Provincial Middle Class,” in Latin American Literary Review, Vol. VII, No. 14, Spring-Summer, 1979, pp. 5-18.

In the following essay, Miller discusses Castellanos's use of plot, setting, characterization, and narrative techniques in Los convidados de agosto to demonstrate her thoughts on sociopolitical issues.

Rosario Castellanos (1925-74) was a remarkable prose fiction writer as well as poet.¹ Her novels, Balún-Canán [The Nine Guardians] and Oficio de tinieblas [Profession of Darkness], are distinct and original contributions to the body of literature about the Mexican Revolution and to the indigenista novel, respectively.² Castellanos published, in addition, three volumes of short stories³ and a sizeable number of essays, most of which have been collected.⁴ This study deals with her volume of short stories of 1964, Los convidados de agosto [Guests in August], referring occasionally to Castellanos' essays in order to probe her method...