Introduction

Abstract

In its issue of July 1999, the cultural journal Letras Libres—which had begun publication following the death of Octavio Paz in 1998 and the subsequent closing down of Paz’s magazine Vuelta—sought to claim its place within Mexican cultural traditions and institutions. It printed an “árbol hemerográfico” (“A family tree of little magazines”), with a growth span of almost one hundred years. At its base stood the cultural group known as the Ateneo de la Juventud and the literary magazine, Contemporáneos that appeared in Mexico between 1928 and 1931. Just above the base of Contemporáneos, we find Barandal (1931–1932) and Taller (1938–1941), magazines that Paz himself was involved with in his youth and in his early years as a poet. Toward the top of the trunk are Plural (1971–1976), Vuelta (1976–1998), and Letras Libres (1998–), the two magazines that Paz personally edited in the final three decades of his life, and this new journal that, following his death, openly declared its adherence to his legacy. In this particular mapping of the field of twentieth century Mexican cultural history, Paz—in his work as a poet and critic but also, crucially, in his role as an editor of journals—is seen as central. Indeed the critic Guillermo Sheridan has argued that Paz’s work as an editor and promoter of literary journals should be considered almost on a par with his life as a poet.¹ The present book seeks to analyze the first of these central journals, Plural, edited by Paz between October 1971 and July 1976, and published as part of the Excélsior newspaper group, then directed by Julio Scherer.

The original project of Plural was (and still is) to edit a Latin American journal in Mexico, that would be open to the world.

—Octavio Paz to Tomás Segovia, 27 January 1972.