Mariano Azuela's The Underdogs [Los de abajo] (1915) | Book Review and Analysis

A reflection on Mariano Azuela's The Underdogs (Los de abajo), a classic novella of the Mexican Revolution. English translation by Ilan Stavans and Anna More published by Norton in 2015 for the 100th anniversary of the novella, as part of their Norton Critical Editions series.

Check out my video on Carlos Fuentes' The Death of Artemio Cruz:
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Contents:
00:00 – Intro
01:06 – About Mariano Azuela
01:52 – The Underdogs: publication context and structure
03:41 – Premise and characters (and a little more on structure)
05:09 – The first chapter
06:54 – Intertwining, poetry, and dialogue
09:21 – Double perspective: Demetrio Macías and Luis Cervantes
11:53 – The portrayal of women
12:57 – Intertextuality: comparison with two classics of US literature
15:07 – The Underdogs' view of the Mexican Revolution
19:09 – What edition should you get?
22:05 – Bottom line