The Lightning of August

The Lightning of August

Cover

Cover of the first edition.
Author Jorge Ibargüengoitia
Original title Los relámpagos de agosto
Translator Irene del Corral[1]
Cover artist Joy Laville[2]
Country Mexico
Language Spanish
Genre Political satire
Publisher Casa de las Américas (original)[3]
Publication date
 1964[3]
Published in English
 1986
Pages 116
OCLC 341335
LC Class PQ7298.19.B3

Los relámpagos de agosto (officially translated in 1986 as The Lightning of August)[1] was the first novel written by Mexican author Jorge Ibargüengoitia. Published for the first time in 1964, it parodies the memories written by veterans of the 1910 Mexican Revolution and the armed revolts that continued to destabilize the country for the next two decades.[4]

Since many of such veterans had joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) —a political organization that had ruled Mexico by rigging elections and engaging in massive corruption and cronyism for most of the 20th century[5]— the topic was still considered somewhat off-limits by the governing regime (and the literary critics that sympathized with it) at the time of its publication.[6]

Critically, it went on to receive the 1964 Casa de las Américas annual prize for novel,[7] it has been distributed among Mexican public schools through the National Reading Program[8] and it was selected by the Guadalajara International Book Fair to celebrate the 2010 World Book Day.[9]

Summary of the plot

The book is written as the personal testimony of fictional and disgraced Army General José Guadalupe "Lupe" Arroyo, a veteran of the Mexican Revolution. Throughout the novel, Arroyo attempts to dispel all sorts of "defamatory claims" made by his political rivals and tries to explain the plainly incompetent political and military strategies made by his associates.

Style

The novel caricaturize the solemn language and rhetoric frequently found in some autobiographical memories of the period.[10] Except in a few instances where the passage at hand is not controversial, most characters, cities, and even states are entirely fictional, as Ibargüengoitia tried to avert a direct confrontation with the regime or an obvious allusion to a particular member of the ruling party.[11]

Publication

According to the author, he finished writing the novel in 1963[4] —some twenty years before his untimely death in a plane accident.[2] The first edition consisted of 10,000 copies printed in May 1964 by Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, celebrating its winning entry for best novel in its annual prize.[3] In Mexico, it was first available until May 1965 through Joaquín Mortiz;[3] a publishing house acquired by Grupo Planeta in 1983.[12] Most covers used by Planeta through both its Joaquín Mortiz and Booket imprints include a painting by British-born artist Joy Laville, widow of the author.[2]

As for its English edition, according to Víctor Díaz Arciniega, Ibargüengoitia was negotiating a translation with Dr. Jack Robert in 1970, but it was never completed.[3] The first one to be published was translated by Irene del Corral and printed in 1986 by Bard/Avon Books (New York) under the title The Lightning of August.[1] The same translation was adapted to British English and published in the United Kingdom by Chatto & Windus (1986). In total, the novel has been translated into seven languages.[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Dorfman, Ariel (23 February 1986). "The clowns come to the Revolution". New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 Núñez Jaime, Víctor (9 January 2013). "Jorge Ibargüengoitia, el humor en serio". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 25 July 2013. Ibargüengoitia fue esposo de la pintora inglesa Joy Laville, que le ilustraba las portadas de sus libros, y juntos se fueron a vivir a París a finales de la década de los setenta del siglo pasado.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Díaz Archiniega, Víctor (2002). "Nota filológica preliminar". In Villoro, Juan; Díaz Arciniega, Víctor. El atentado y Los relámpagos de agosto: edición crítica (in Spanish). CRLA. p. XLVII. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 Ibargüengoitia, Jorge (April 2013). Muñoz Alarcón, Horacio, ed. En primera persona: Cronología ilustrada de Jorge Ibargüengoitia (Biografía) (in Spanish). Mesa directiva de la Cámara de Diputados. El atentado me dejó dos beneficios: me cerró las puertas del teatro y me abrió las de la novela. Al documentarme para escribir esta obra encontré un material que me hizo concebir la idea de escribir una novela sobre la última parte de la revolución mexicana basándome en una forma que fue común en esa época en México: las memorias de general revolucionario. (Muchos generales, al envejecer, escribían sus memorias para demostrar que ellos eran los únicos que habían tenido razón.) Esta novela, Los relámpagos de agosto, fue escrita en 1963, ganó el premio de novela Casa de las Américas en 1964, fue editada en México en 1965, ha sido traducida a siete idiomas y en la actualidad, diecisiete años después, se vende más que nunca.
  5. ↑ Barrington, Lowell (2012). Comparative Politics: Structures and Choices (2nd ed.). Stamford, CT, United States: Cengage Learning. pp. 79–80. ISBN 9781111341930. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
  6. ↑ Villoro, Juan (2002). "El diablo en el espejo". In Villoro, Juan; Díaz Arciniega, Víctor. El atentado y Los relámpagos de agosto: edición crítica (in Spanish). CRLA. pp. XXIII–XXXVIII. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  7. ↑ Langford, Walter M. (1971). The Mexican Novel Comes of Age. Notre Dame, Indiana, USA: University of Notre Dame Press. pp. 190–192. ISBN 9780268004507.
  8. ↑ "Títulos seleccionados para el acervo del Programa Nacional Salas de Lectura 2012". CONACULTA. 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  9. ↑ "Conmemorarán el Día Mundial del Libro con obra de Ibargüengoitia". La Jornada (in Spanish). Notimex. 20 March 2010. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
  10. ↑ Sheridan, Guillermo (19 November 1994). Ocampo y Vilas, María Eugenia, ed. "La historia como farsa en Jorge Ibargüengoitia" [History as a farce in Jorge Ibargüengoitia]. Romanica Gandensia. La memoria histórica en las letras hispánicas contemporáneas: Simposio internacional, Amberes 18-19 de noviembre de 1994 (in Spanish). 27: 254–259. ISSN 0080-3855. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
  11. ↑ Lange, Charlotte (2008). "4. Los relámpagos de agosto: cuestionamiento de la mexicanidad". Modos de parodia [Modes of parody]. Hispanic Studies: Culture and Ideas (in Spanish). 22. Peter Lang. pp. 141–179. ISBN 978-3-03911-554-9. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
  12. ↑ Anderson, Danny J. (1996). "Creating Cultural Prestige: Editorial Joaquín Mortiz". Latin American Research Review. 31 (2): 3–42. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
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