"Nosotros, los bárbaros":

Titled with the phrase that summarizes one of the works analyzed here, "Nosotros, los bárbaros" penetrates and contrasts the narrative production of three of the most representative exponents of current Mexican literature as pre-texts that allow us to probe the collective imaginary. All the work published so far by Yuri Herrera, Fernanda Melchor and Valeria Luiselli is interrogated from multiple aesthetic-ideological perspectives, trying to determine the way in which each poetic approaches the complex social and political problems of contemporary Mexico. This book studies the strategies of symbolic representation referred to both the acute conflicts that take place in the national territory and the transnationalization processes that have accelerated in the globalized world. Incorporating perspectives from cultural criticism, aesthetics and philosophy, this analysis attempts to address the following questions: What is the relationship between “high” culture with popular culture and the cultural industry, as well as with the mass media and with the national tradition? How is "the political" redefined in current Mexican literature? How are poetics and social conscience linked? How does the place of enunciation –not only geo-cultural but political ideological– influence the construction of the symbolic product? And, finally, what is literature for in times of crisis?