The Mexican Dream, or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations

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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.

Video The Mexican Dream, or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations

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

Maps The Mexican Dream, or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations

Subjects

• History: Latin American History
• Latin American Studies
• Literature and Literary Criticism: Romance Languages
• Religion: Comparative Studies and History of Religion

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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.

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Publication history/Editions

11 editions published between 1988 and 2004 in 5 languages and held by 835 libraries worldwide

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. ISBN 978-2-07-032680-8. 

second French Edition

• Le Clézio, J -M G (1988). Le rêve mexicain, ou, La pensée interrompue (in French). [Paris: Gallimard NRF essais. p. 248. ISBN 978-2-07-071389-9. 

other French Edition

Also published in French under Le Clézio, J.M.G. (1992). Le Rêve mexicain. Paris: Gallimard Folio. p. 273. ISBN 978-2-07-032680-8. 

First English Edition

• Clézio, JMG (1993). The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. Chicago (Illinois) United States: University of Chicago Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0-226-11002-8. 

Second English Edition

• 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. ISBN 978-0-226-11003-5. 

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

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Publishers résumé

to French lang. Ed. "Le rêve mexicain ou la pensée interrompue"

French

:"Au cours du mois de mars 1517, les ambassadeurs de Moctezuma, seigneur de Mexico-Tenochtitlan, accueillent le navire de Hernán Cortés et cette rencontre initie une des plus terribles aventures du monde, qui s'achève par l'abolition de la civilisation indienne du Mexique, de sa pensée, de sa foi, de son art, de son savoir, de ses lois"

English

"During the month of March 1517, the ambassadors of Moctezuma , Lord of Mexico-Tenochtitlan are taken on board the ship of Hernán Cortés and their meeting initiates one of the most terrible adventures of the world, which ends with the extinction of the Indian civilization in Mexico along with their ideas, their religions,their arts, what they knew and their legal system".

Reviews

Le Figaro and Kirkus Reviews reviewed the book.

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"

References

External links

• The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations at Google Books

Source of the article : Wikipedia