The 3 best books by Jorge Volpi

When a writer transits between the essay and the fictional narrative, I end up winning in both areas of creation. This is the case of Jorge Luis Volpi whose novel characters end up acquiring the internal deposit of meditative propensity and critical intention that already mark the essays of this young Mexican author.

Among the authors of the crack generation, conceived as a trend towards sophistication in form and also in substance (only with thematic freedom for each author), Volpi stands out as the heir of the great Mexican writers such as Juan Rulfo or even Octavio Paz, for its repercussion and for its transformative intention beyond the simple intellectual pleasure of reading.

Because behind every reader there can always be a conscience that is steeped in that perspective of the author convinced of the convenience of the social portrait and of the critical contribution from the human, transmitted with determination from absolutely vivid character profiles and from a set design studied up to the minimal detail.

For authors like Volpi, belonging to that club of erudite writers, still young but with worldwide recognition, their thematic mission extends to determining the context of the reality of our time from the prelude to the XNUMXth century (we remember his XNUMXth Century Trilogy ) but also projected towards the casuistry of his closest environment in Mexico or to that kind of predictions that every freethinker ends up expressing in his story, in the case of Volpi through powerful novels and essays that also address the existential, as well as the inalienable argument of emotions.

Top 3 recommended books by Jorge Volpi

A criminal novel

Approaching the noir genre for such a profound author always leads to interesting narrative surprises ... That Jorge Volpi is a narrator aware of his closest reality is not something new.

In his previous book Against Trump, he already gave a good account of what Trump's xenophobic ideology implies for his country, Mexico. It is not a question of ranting for its own sake, Volpi gives his latest works an aura of intellectuality. Proposals always deeply documented with which to base your narrative argument. AND

either in a more realistic plan, as in Trump's previous book, or to relate from reality, as is the case with this "A criminal novel", with which he has won the 2018 Alfaguara award or, of course, to navigate between complete fictions as in his great novel "The Shadow Weaver", to point out one example of each type. The events, those from which Volpi draws this story for his ironic title, occurred on December 8, 2005.

Its characters Israel Vallarta and Florence Cassez were involved in a surreal arrest, turned into a scapegoat of God knows what criminal organization in collusion with power and whose arrest the press soon also made its own cause.

Israel and Florence suffered torture, parallel trials and public ridicule. They found themselves immersed in an ominous plan of mafias capable of shaking governments and justice with astonishing intensity. Television, also mediated by the ignominious plan, was responsible for convincing every Mexican that Israel and Florence had kidnapped to achieve their economic goals, belonging as they were to an organized crime group.

From the outset, the experiences of Israel and Florence, completely unaware of all those formal accusations, must have been distressing. If, in addition to the fact that you are not guilty of anything, you discover that a malicious plan with unpredictable results is hanging over you...

The fight against crime, when it rises decisively to its highest levels, it collides with a beast capable of everything to defend its dominions. Nothing else can be expected of those who are in charge of pulling the strings of crime as the foundation for their profit and their wealthy lifestyle.

And corruption, like so many other times, is discovered as a rugged chain of favors that ends up linking power and public institutions with the worst of social ills. A crude story for what it means to wake up to reality. A warning for navigators about the fragility of democracy and institutions.

A criminal novel

Against Trump

Why not select one of his most thoughtful books on current politics? The Trump case is the current emblem of the most terrifying populism that can lead us to any phase of world discord ...

When Trump came to power, the foundations of the West were shaken by what seemed like an imminent cataclysm. Some countries like Mexico felt they were the epicenter of the world earthquake, and the intellectuals of the Central American country soon demonstrated against the new figure of the president of the United States.

One of those intellectuals is the writer Jorge Volpi, author of this book in which he shows his concerns about Trump's electoral promises and his almost accomplished facts regarding the deal with his neighbor to the south.

But beyond the interpretation of the effects of the new North American government on Mexico, in this book Against Trump We are presented with a worrying scenario, determined in the light of the ideals and the first facts that Trump is leaving behind.

The truth is that it was coming. It was something of a sinister self-fulfilling prophecy that America's voters joked about, but has found a niche to materialize.

Under the public demonstration of intellectuals, people of culture and music or even big businessmen, almost all of them detractors of Trump, a huge social mass has finally opted for the tycoon, entrusting their future to his proclamations in defense of the USA against to all external agents.

With the idea that only navelism can maintain the status of US citizens, allowing a distribution of wealth towards the working class, Trump has conquered so many affected by the crisis.

It is what it is, in difficult moments it is easy for the speaker on duty to turn the strange into a threat and the different into an offense. This is how a misogynist and xenophobe has reached the top of the world's leading country.

Jorge Volpi's idea with this book is to mobilize as in the past, turning this book into a pamphlet, a sarcastic libel with which to seek awareness and sanity. A different way of fighting against populism, over and above the usual lukewarm policy formulas that are no longer relevant to the people.

Against Trump volpi

The shadow weaver

Surprising love story about love as a concept. In a certain way, Volpi, with full knowledge of the unapproachable nature of the matter, offers us a glimpse between surreal and dreamlike, with a powerful intellectual transgression, with the vehemence of a reasoning incapable of approaching the concept of love as that mixture of drives and desires for intellectual or even soul connection.

What happens to Henry and Christina, back in 1925, who suffer from a love that seems inalienable for both of them despite their disparate circumstances that want to push them towards other paths, leads us to their most insane search for therapy against love, or of understanding this in order to be able to approach it rationally. A strange scientific experiment and a lifelong obsession.

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