Palinuro of Mexico

Winner of Mexico's Premio Novela Mexico, Venezuela's Romulo Gallegos Prize for best Spanish-language novel, and France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for best foreign book, Palinuro of Mexico is a masterpiece which ranks with the finest achievements of Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, and Mario Vargas Llosa. Palinuro, a medical student, is born into a polygenetic family: Uncle Esteban, who fled from Hungary during the Great War and traveled across the world to Mexico, clinging to his dream of becoming a doctor; Grandpa Francisco, a Freemason and old-time companion of Pancho Villa; Uncle Austin, an ex-British marine; grandmothers, aunts, cousins—an eccentric menage. Since childhood, Palinuro has loved his first cousin, Estefania, with an overwhelming and consuming passion. They indulge their incestuous desires and bizarre fantasies in a room in the Plaza Santa Domingo. Drawing from a cultural cornucopia, del Paso propels Palinuro and his companions though the real and the