Gustavo Sainz: Postmodernism in the Mexican Novel

In this study Professor Fernández examines narratives written by Gustavo Sainz as representative postmodernist fiction. The author focuses on Sainz’s use of narrative techniques associated with postmodernism, such as carnivalized images, hybridization and fragmentation, and historiographic metafiction. The author also analyzes Sainz’s novels as a cultural response and a criticism of the literary and sociopolitical hegemony of modernism. Finally, Professor Fernández suggests that Sainz’s novels represent both a national and a universal expression of Mexico’s hybrid society, especially during the civil unrest of 1968.