Creating Cultural Prestige: Editorial Joaquín Mortiz

Abstract

For the past thirty years, the imprint “Editorial Joaquín Mortiz” has stood for innovation, quality, and prestige in Mexican literature. After it was founded in 1962, Joaquín Mortiz quickly emerged as the premier literary publisher in Mexico and has provided readers with many of the novels and short stories now recognized as landmarks defining the contemporary canon of Mexican fiction. Most studies of Mexican narrative of the 1960s have tended to emphasize the dichotomy between the elitist self-conscious experimentation ofescriturawriting and the irreverent youthful exuberance ofondawriting. Shifting the focus from texts to publishers, however, reveals a different configuration. Editorial Joaquín Mortiz actually encouraged both these trends by cultivating the work of escritura authors such as Salvador Elizondo, Juan García Ponce, and José Emilio Pacheco along with those of onda authors like Gustavo Sainz and José Agustín. Moreover, during its first two years, Joaquín Mortiz staked much of its early reputation on promoting two Mexican novels now fundamental to women's writing throughout Latin America:Oficio de tinieblas(1962) by Rosario Castellanos andLos recuerdos del porvenir(1963) by Elena Garro. Thus Editorial Joaquín Mortiz has greatly influenced the development of contemporary Mexican narrative.