‘Certain Ghosts of the Mexican Literary Tradition’: The Disappearance and Resurgence of Amparo Dávila

Abstract

This essay traces the rise, fall, and second ascent of Dávila’s literary fame, whose writing, relevant to the fantasy genre, fell largely into oblivion for decades before the resurgence of her work in the final years of the author’s life with the publication of her Cuentos reunidos, (2009) and a new collection of her stories translated into English. This article analyzes the importance of Dávila as one of the best Latin American exponents of the feminine fantastic, and frames some of her most important stories within this genre based on theories of the fantastic developed by Carmen Alemany Bay, David Roas and Marcelo Cohen. Also, it analyzes the role of the Mexican American writer Cristina Rivera Garza who, with her novel La cresta de Ilión (2002), helped rescue Dávila’s memory. The present work examines the use of intertextuality in La cresta de Ilión in relation to the work of Dávila, as part of the analysis of the author’s enormous influence on contemporary Latin American and cross-border writing. This article contains unpublished material from an interview conducted with the author shortly before her death. In addition, it shares previously unpublished details about the publication and American reception of her work The Houseguest and Other Stories (New Directions, 2018), translated into English by this article’s author and Matthew Gleeson.