Ryan F. Long is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Oklahoma. His research focuses on culture and politics in Mexico, especially the late twentieth century. He has published articles on a range of topics, including the conflict in Chiapas, Mexican cinema, and a number of writers, such as Ignacio Manuel Altamirano, Álvaro Mutis, and Roberto Bolaño. His book, Fictions of Totality: The Mexican Novel, 1968, and the National-Popular State, was published in 2008 by Purdue University Press.
Juan Villoro (b. 1956, Mexico City) is a novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and chronicler whose work addresses an impressive array of topics with insight, dark humor, and irony: canonical Mexica…