What do you think?
Rate this book
Cartucho / My Mother's Hands
Nellie Campobello, a prominent Mexican writer and "novelist of the Revolution," played an important role in Mexico's cultural renaissance in the 1920s and early 1930s, along with such writers as Rafael Muñoz and Gregorio López y Fuentes and artists Diego Rivera, Orozco, and others. Her two novellas, Cartucho (first published in 1931) and My Mother's Hands (first published as Las manos de Mamá in 1938), are autobiographical evocations of a childhood spent amidst the violence and turmoil of the Revolution in Mexico. Campobello's memories of the Revolution in the north of Mexico, where Pancho Villa was a popular hero and a personal friend of her family, show not only the stark realism of Cartucho but also the tender lyricism of My Mother's Hands . They are noteworthy, too, as a first-person account of the female experience in the early years of the Mexican Revolution and unique in their presentation of events from a child's perspective.
129 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1987
13 people are currently reading
614 people want to read
About the author
Nellie Campobello
12 books59 followersNellie Francisca Ernestina Campobello Luna, born María Francisca Moya Luna (b. November 7, 1900 – d. July 9, 1986), was a Mexican writer. Like her half-sister Gloria, a well-known ballet dancer, she was also known as an enthusiastic dancer and choreographer.
Campobello was born in Ocampo, Durango the third of six children of Rafaela Luna, and her father was her mother's nephew Jesús Felipe Moya Luna, son of her sister Florencia. Probably this was a reason, why she concealed traces of her past. She handled also her year of birth indiscriminately as 1909 or 1913. She spent her childhood in Parral, Chihuahua and her youth in the city of Chihuahua, where she visited the Inglesa de la Colonia Rosales college. After her father was killed in the Battle of Ojinaga in 1914, her mother remarried the physician Stephen Campbell from Boston, whose last name the children assumed, and which was altered to Campobello by Nellie. In 1921, her mother died.
During the revolutionary years she came to Mexico City, where she became later director of the national school of dance (Spanish: Escuela Nacional de Danza) of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.
In 1985 she suddenly disappeared, as well as her belongings and paintings of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. In 1998, the Commission of Human rights of the Federal District discovered that Nellie died on July 9, 1986, and that she was buried in the Progreso de Obregón Cemetery of Hidalgo. Supposedly she was kidnapped by Claudio Fuentes Figueroa or Claudio Niño Cienfuentes and his spouse Maria Cristina Belmont. Many of her choreographies of indigenous dances were rescued. Her corpse was transferred to Durango in 1999.
She was never married, but had several affairs. It is traced, that she had a son (1919–1921) with Alfredo Chávez, the later Governor of Chihuahua.Also Germán List Arzubide told, that he felt in love with her.
Campobello was born in Ocampo, Durango the third of six children of Rafaela Luna, and her father was her mother's nephew Jesús Felipe Moya Luna, son of her sister Florencia. Probably this was a reason, why she concealed traces of her past. She handled also her year of birth indiscriminately as 1909 or 1913. She spent her childhood in Parral, Chihuahua and her youth in the city of Chihuahua, where she visited the Inglesa de la Colonia Rosales college. After her father was killed in the Battle of Ojinaga in 1914, her mother remarried the physician Stephen Campbell from Boston, whose last name the children assumed, and which was altered to Campobello by Nellie. In 1921, her mother died.
During the revolutionary years she came to Mexico City, where she became later director of the national school of dance (Spanish: Escuela Nacional de Danza) of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.
In 1985 she suddenly disappeared, as well as her belongings and paintings of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. In 1998, the Commission of Human rights of the Federal District discovered that Nellie died on July 9, 1986, and that she was buried in the Progreso de Obregón Cemetery of Hidalgo. Supposedly she was kidnapped by Claudio Fuentes Figueroa or Claudio Niño Cienfuentes and his spouse Maria Cristina Belmont. Many of her choreographies of indigenous dances were rescued. Her corpse was transferred to Durango in 1999.
She was never married, but had several affairs. It is traced, that she had a son (1919–1921) with Alfredo Chávez, the later Governor of Chihuahua.Also Germán List Arzubide told, that he felt in love with her.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 24, 2011
Nellie Campobello, who went on to become a noted dancer in Mexico, grew up in Parral, Chihuahua when it was one of Pancho Villa's last strongholds. Cartuchos is her account of what it was like to be a girl watching as the eventual winners of the Mexican Revolution defeated Villa. This is not history though; it is a girl's view of a childhood marred by death-a whole section is devoted to executions and very few vignettes don't feature one. There is play in this world; her mother risks everything to treat wounded men regardless of side; a beloved candyseller enlists but is killed before firing a shot; men die in battle, or are executed as a matter of routine. There isn't much valor, although plenty of vainglory. She witnesses the kangaroo court that sentences Felipe Angeles, the greatest of Villa's generals (some argue that if Villa had listened to him at key points, he wouldn't have lost) to death, of course. The most sadistic of them, Rodolfo Fierro, also appears for a moment but it was left to Rafael F. Munoz to depict how he died -- drowning and so hated that none of his comrades in arms would help him. Curiously, perhaps because this is a young girl's version, few women appear and those who do are either camp followers or her mother. When I lived in Mexico, there didn't seem to be a family that didn't know how the women were hidden when the Revolutionaries came. If I didn't hear any stories of the women who fell into their clutches, well, those are not the kind of stories that families tell. "Cartucho", the direct reminiscence with the telling details of how the Revolutionaries dressed and acted (and were killed) is paired in this edition with "My Mother's Hands", a shorter, very impressionistic, and to me less successful treatment of the same period.
November 17, 2020
An incredible work that is as quick to read as it is mind-blowing to experience.
These short, prose sketches of various people and events are not simply accounts of the horrors of the Mexican Revolution. They are brilliantly composed prose vignettes with the emotional impact of poetry. Among the many works about the Revolution, this is by far the most immediate, visceral, beautiful, and haunting of them all.
These short, prose sketches of various people and events are not simply accounts of the horrors of the Mexican Revolution. They are brilliantly composed prose vignettes with the emotional impact of poetry. Among the many works about the Revolution, this is by far the most immediate, visceral, beautiful, and haunting of them all.
July 24, 2022
Achingly beautiful collection of vignettes about Campobello's life as a child in the Mexican Revolution. It combines memoir, fiction, oral history, and poetry in a unique and often bleak depiction of this bloody social revolution. Campobello, unlike most writers of the Revolution, held faith with it and was a lifelong admirer of Pancho Villa. Some of this radicalism comes through. But above all Campobello conveys a deep sense of her love for the simple country people who made the Revolution, sacrificed their lives for it, and grieved the losses it brought.
Of these tragic protagonists, her own mother is the central figure. My Mother's Hands is essentially a poem dedicated to her, but written in stark and endlessly inventive prose. In it, Campobello's gift for startling metaphors is displayed completely and her magical use of language is in full flow. It's quite astonishing.
This book needs to be more widely read. It's full of brilliant romance, black humour, and gentle heatbreak. A classic.
Of these tragic protagonists, her own mother is the central figure. My Mother's Hands is essentially a poem dedicated to her, but written in stark and endlessly inventive prose. In it, Campobello's gift for startling metaphors is displayed completely and her magical use of language is in full flow. It's quite astonishing.
This book needs to be more widely read. It's full of brilliant romance, black humour, and gentle heatbreak. A classic.
June 21, 2021
I've been a fan of Mexican literature for most of my adult life, and especially that written by the generation who grew up in the Revolution. Nellie Campobello is among the foremost of those writers, and if you don't know much about her, I really recommend reading more about her fascinating (if a bit tragic) life.
This book contains two distinct pieces of writing. The first is Cartucho, a series of very short memories of the Revolution as told through the eyes of a young girl - as Campobello was herself during that time. The writing style is brutal and staccato and reflects the ease with which one becomes familiar and even comfortable with unspeakable violence when it happens all around you all the time. The writing could sometimes be confusing - there are a lot of individuals who are the focus of one story then show up as a tertiary character in another - but is still impactful. And you have the sense of being there, looking out the window the witness all of the small grotesque and sublime moments which make up something as romanticized and grand as the Mexican Revolution.
The second, which I thought was the better of the two, is My Mother's Hands, and series of vignettes written in a quasi-poetic style which detail Campobello's relationship with her mother when she was a child. The writing is gorgeous, visceral, evocative. She manages to say so much about the intimate relationship between mother and children in so few pages while creating an atmosphere unlike any other.
Lastly, the introduction was written by Elena Poniatowska, who is my favorite Mexican author. Two sentences into the intro was I was already in thrall.
Anyway, go read 20th century Mexican literature. It's unique and violent and funny and PRESENT in a way I haven't read anywhere else.
Here are some quotes:
“But El Kirilí lay there in the water, his body turning cold, the tissue of his porous flesh clutching the bullets that killed him.”
- Cartucho
“He was executed one cold afternoon, the kind of afternoon that makes the poor think of their helplessness. A timely blanket of shots put him to sleep forever atop his gray sarape with green eagles.”
- Cartucho
“In this house we learned the color of things and saw for the first time that Mama had two large moles and one small one; that her colors were natural; that she herself made everything we ate; that she washed our hair and made our little smocks (brothers and sisters were dressed the same; she would think up the patterns according to the pieces of cloth she had); that She did everything for us, with her own hands: for us little nobodies. They were happy little rags, made with the songs she sent out into the night in memory of her companion!”
- My Mother’s Hands
This book contains two distinct pieces of writing. The first is Cartucho, a series of very short memories of the Revolution as told through the eyes of a young girl - as Campobello was herself during that time. The writing style is brutal and staccato and reflects the ease with which one becomes familiar and even comfortable with unspeakable violence when it happens all around you all the time. The writing could sometimes be confusing - there are a lot of individuals who are the focus of one story then show up as a tertiary character in another - but is still impactful. And you have the sense of being there, looking out the window the witness all of the small grotesque and sublime moments which make up something as romanticized and grand as the Mexican Revolution.
The second, which I thought was the better of the two, is My Mother's Hands, and series of vignettes written in a quasi-poetic style which detail Campobello's relationship with her mother when she was a child. The writing is gorgeous, visceral, evocative. She manages to say so much about the intimate relationship between mother and children in so few pages while creating an atmosphere unlike any other.
Lastly, the introduction was written by Elena Poniatowska, who is my favorite Mexican author. Two sentences into the intro was I was already in thrall.
Anyway, go read 20th century Mexican literature. It's unique and violent and funny and PRESENT in a way I haven't read anywhere else.
Here are some quotes:
“But El Kirilí lay there in the water, his body turning cold, the tissue of his porous flesh clutching the bullets that killed him.”
- Cartucho
“He was executed one cold afternoon, the kind of afternoon that makes the poor think of their helplessness. A timely blanket of shots put him to sleep forever atop his gray sarape with green eagles.”
- Cartucho
“In this house we learned the color of things and saw for the first time that Mama had two large moles and one small one; that her colors were natural; that she herself made everything we ate; that she washed our hair and made our little smocks (brothers and sisters were dressed the same; she would think up the patterns according to the pieces of cloth she had); that She did everything for us, with her own hands: for us little nobodies. They were happy little rags, made with the songs she sent out into the night in memory of her companion!”
- My Mother’s Hands
February 7, 2025
The historical context of this novel was not enough for me to enjoy it. Although it was for a class that could take some of the more enjoyable emotions out of it, it was still pretty boring. However, the creative take on storytelling was original, and maybe in the future, I would find it more enjoyable.
January 6, 2026
Perhaps if I were better I formed about the revolution I would have found this more enjoyable. I found it tedious in its repetitive killings. My Mother’s Hands was of more interest though lacking in depth. Not for me.
November 10, 2025
Immersive
February 4, 2016
one of my favorite works that i've read so far in this "literature of the americas" class, and i love this class but i don't usually like the kinds of books we've been reading in this class (historically significant ones) but i'm really happy i got the opportunity to read this book in this setting. it was so so interesting to analyze and nelly campobello is such an interesting person i want to learn more about her. the stories were pretty creepy at times but so interesting!!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews