The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations is an English translation of an essay written in French by J. M. G. Le Clézio first published in 1988.
Contents
Le rêve du Conquérant (The Dream of the Conquerors)
Moctezuma, Huitzilopochtli, Mexico
Le rêve des origines (The Dream of Origins)
Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, Aztèques
Mythes mexicains (Mexican Myths)
Nahuatl, Huicholes, Quetzalcoatl
Nezahualcoyotl, or the Festival of Words
The barbarian dream
Antonin Artaud, or the Mexican Dream
The interrupted thought of Amerindian Civilizations
Notes
Map of region
Subjects
History: Latin American History
Latin American Studies
Literature and Literary Criticism: Romance Languages
Religion: Comparative Studies and History of Religion[1]
Aim
In the essay, Le Clézio conducts an inquiry into the brutal disappearance of the indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica in the 16th century, particularly the end of the Mexican civilization at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors.
The author analyses the personalities of characters such as Hernán Cortés, La Malinche, Moctezuma II, Cuauhtémoc, and other key players in the conquest of Mesoamerica. He refers extensively to the descriptions offered by Bernal Díaz del Castillo in his Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España in analysing the events. He imagines what might have happened if the native populations had not been reduced to silence by brutality, and what their impact on Western civilization might have been. Understanding that the West holds both economic and cultural sway over the contemporary world because of the colonization of America, he wonders how the cultural life of Mesoamerica – particularly that of the Aztecs – would have evolved if the arrival of the Europeans had not decimated the indigenous societies through war, disease and slavery.[2]
Publication history/Editions
11 editions published between 1988 and 2004 in 5 languages and held by 835 libraries worldwide.[3]
First French Edition
Le Clézio, J -M G (1965). Le Rêve mexicain ou la pensée interrompue (in French). Paris: Gallimard, Collection Folio/essais, 178. p. 274. ISBN978-2-07-032680-8.
second French Edition
Le Clézio, J -M G (1988). Le rêve mexicain, ou, La pensée interrompue (in French). [Paris: Gallimard NRF essais. p. 248. ISBN978-2-07-071389-9.
Clézio, JMG (2009). The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. Chicago (Illinois) United States: University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-11003-5.
I am delighted—but not at all surprised!—that Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. When I read Le rêve mexicain—The Mexican Dream—for the first time, I was transported by Le Clézio’s language and message. The author imagined how the thought of early Indian civilizations might have evolved if not for the interruption of European conquest. And how our own civilization might have been different had we had the continued input of such advanced, now vanished, peoples[4]
— Teresa Lavender Fagan
Reviews
Le Figaro and Kirkus Reviews reviewed the book.[5]
The University of Chicago Press
"In an unprecedented way, his book takes us into the dream that was the religion of the Aztecs, which in its own apocalyptic visions anticipated the coming of the Spanish conquerors. Here the dream of the conquistadores rises beforeus, too, the glimmering idea of gold drawing Europe into the Mexican dream. Against the religion and thought of the Aztecs and the Tarascans and the Europeans in Mexico, Le Clézio also shows us those of the "barbarians" of the north, the nomadic Indians beyond the pale of the Aztec frontier"
^"The Mexican Dream by JMG Le Clézio". Archived in Books for the News. University of Chicago Press. 9 October 2008. Retrieved 10 December 2008. Teresa Lavender Fagan said"I am delighted—but not at all surprised!—that Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. When I read Le rêve mexicain—The Mexican Dream—for the first time, I was transported by Le Clézio's language and message. The author imagined how the thought of early Indian civilizations might have evolved if not for the interruption of European conquest. And how our own civilization might have been different had we had the continued input of such advanced, now vanished, peoples."
^"The Mexican Dream book by Le Clezio". Contributed by Mario González-Román. The University of Chicago Press. 10 October 2008. Retrieved 11 December 2008. "in an unprecedented way, his book takes us into the dream2[dead link]
