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Mexico City Noir
Brand-new stories by: Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Eugenio Aguirre, Eduardo Antonia Parra, Bernardo Fernandez Bef, Oscar de la Borbolla, Rolo Diez, Victor Luiz Gonzalez, F.G. Haghenbeck, Juan Hernandez Luna, Myriam Laurini, Eduardo Monteverde, and Julia Rodriguez.
It's hard to get much more noir than Mexico City, and after several years' effort, Akashic was finally able to rope Paco I. Taibo into curating this dramatic, chilling, and frequently hilarious volume.
178 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2010
42 people are currently reading
385 people want to read
About the author
Eduardo Antonio Parra
44 books41 followersNarrador. Estudió Lengua y Literaturas Hispánicas en la Universidad Regiomontana. Algunos de sus relatos han sido traducidos al inglés, francés, italiano, danés y alemán. Colaborador de Confabulario, Crónica Dominical, Diálogo Cultural entre las Fronteras de México, El Ángel, La Cultura en México, La Jornada Semanal, La Tempestad, Letras Libres, Licantropía, Milenio, Milenio Diario y PlayBoy. Becario del Centro de Escritores de Nuevo León, 1990; del FONCA, en cuento, 1996, y en novela, 1998; del Centro Cultural Casa Lamm/Centro de Escritores Juan José Arreola, 2000; de la Fundación Guggenheim, 2001; y miembro del SNCA, 2001. Su obra está incluida en la antología Narcocuentos (Ediciones B, 2014). Ganador del Concurso Nacional de Cuento 1995 del Ayuntamiento de Guasave, Sinaloa, y de la Universidad de Occidente. Primer lugar en el Certamen de Cuento, Poesía y Ensayo 1994 de la UV. Premio Internacional de Cuento Juan Rulfo 2000 por Nadie los vio salir otorgado por Radio Francia Internacional. Premio Nacional de cuento Efrén Hernández 2004. Premio Antonin Artaud 2010 por Sombras detrás de la ventana.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
December 6, 2010
If the purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to new authors and to allow them to explore a place for which they may not be familiar, then yes. Mexico City Noir was a successful book. I loved experiencing the danger and mad beauty of Mexico City through the eyes of the city's resident writers, and I look forward to checking out more of their individual works, (particularly Paco Ignacio Taibo II, a Mexican-raised Spaniard). However, as was my complaint for the other Akashic Noir books I've read, some of the stories seemed rather rushed, disjointed, and ultimately left me feeling like I wasn't really getting a whole lot out of them. That said, it is really difficult to write a thrilling crime saga within a five or ten page limit, so it's kind of up to the reader to take what they can with such a limited offering. I would definitely suggest this book to anyone who likes gritty and violent noirish stories, but just keep in mind that it's more of a visual experience rather than a heady, visceral one.
January 15, 2013
I mainly read this as it was the only thing featuring Paco Ignacio Taibo II in my libraries catalogue but I was intrigued by what Mexican authors would come up with. Largely I was bored and uninspired by what I was reading, whether this was a fault of the translation or not I cannot say but I was impressed by Taibo's contribution and am looking forward to finding more from him in future so it may not be the translation.
March 20, 2022
I particularly enjoyed:
Eduardo Antonio Parra: I'm Nobody
Bernardo Fernandez - Private Collection
Paco Ingnacio Taibo II - The Corner
Juan Hernandez Luna - Bang!
Eugenio Aguirre - Judas Burning
I read all the stories in this comilation, which is rare for something like this, and sure they were pulpy, and some were pretty one dimensional, but but this is good stuff because none of it is traditional detective story fair. There are some noir riffs here and there, but the closest thing to full-on genre work present in this story is Bernardo Fernandez's Private Colection, which is narco-ficcion. This collection is well worth your time, and Taibo mostly keeps his politics out of it, so you can just in enjoy the great waves of black humor.
Eduardo Antonio Parra: I'm Nobody
Bernardo Fernandez - Private Collection
Paco Ingnacio Taibo II - The Corner
Juan Hernandez Luna - Bang!
Eugenio Aguirre - Judas Burning
I read all the stories in this comilation, which is rare for something like this, and sure they were pulpy, and some were pretty one dimensional, but but this is good stuff because none of it is traditional detective story fair. There are some noir riffs here and there, but the closest thing to full-on genre work present in this story is Bernardo Fernandez's Private Colection, which is narco-ficcion. This collection is well worth your time, and Taibo mostly keeps his politics out of it, so you can just in enjoy the great waves of black humor.
March 27, 2011
Mexico City (MC), as well as any other Megalopolis is not to be though of as a single structure, in which symmetries are to be found. MC consists in several more or less well defined sub-cities, and each one has its own issues. One if those issues is the crime derived by some social activities. The book recovers a very interesting group of crime stories, one for each of the mentioned sub-cities.
As there are several authors, each story is entirely different from the others, and that richness is a metaphor of what cities are. MC is as violent as any other Megalopolis in the world, and that violence is described in a very Mexican way. My only complain is that 12 stories are not enough to describe crime and dark aspects in such a city.
As there are several authors, each story is entirely different from the others, and that richness is a metaphor of what cities are. MC is as violent as any other Megalopolis in the world, and that violence is described in a very Mexican way. My only complain is that 12 stories are not enough to describe crime and dark aspects in such a city.
March 2, 2015
Powiedzieć o tej książce, że jest po prostu zła, nie odda pełni tego, co czułam czytając ją. A czułam wiele: niesmak, znużenie, niekiedy nawet złość. Najlepszą częścią "Meksyku Noir" jest jego wstęp - poruszający, brutalny obraz meksykańskiej rzeczywistości, po którym następuje stopniowa degeneracja tej pozycji. Nie potrafię wskazać dobrego opowiadania z tego zbioru, bo takiego tam nie ma. Wszystkie są co najwyżej mierne.
Minus dodaję także za niedokładną korektę - czasami słowa się powtarzają (się można się), czasami użyte są niepoprawnie, niekiedy niechlujnie dopuszcza się do literówek.
Jest mi przykro, że wydałam pieniądze na tę książkę.
Ktoś ma ochotę ją odkupić? Wyjątkowy okaz!
Minus dodaję także za niedokładną korektę - czasami słowa się powtarzają (się można się), czasami użyte są niepoprawnie, niekiedy niechlujnie dopuszcza się do literówek.
Jest mi przykro, że wydałam pieniądze na tę książkę.
Ktoś ma ochotę ją odkupić? Wyjątkowy okaz!
July 11, 2011
anything an author can come up with does not match the insane noir of real-life Mexico. but this is close,if you don't like the newspaper.
July 6, 2010
Call of the grisly
http://www.sfbg.com/2010/08/10/call-g...
Paco Ignacio Taibo II constructs a guide to corruption in Mexico City Noir
08.10.10 - 5:04 pm | Ben Terrall
LIT With volumes devoted to numerous U.S. cities and quite a few foreign capitals, it sometimes seems as if Akashic Books' expanding line of noir story anthologies will wind up covering virtually every major metropolis on earth. Because less gritty burgs like Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Phoenix all have entries in the crime fiction series, it's only fair that Mexico City gets a nod.
Akashic must be commended for waiting several years until the great novelist Paco Ignacio Taibo II agreed to take on editing duties for Mexico City Noir (Akashic Books, 250 pages, $15.95). Taibo, who was born in Spain but has lived in Mexico since 1958, is the author of wildly entertaining and internationally successful mysteries that push the genre's boundaries in interesting directions. In addition to a dense biography of Che Guevara, he has written a doorstop-size book about Pancho Villa that should have been translated into English years ago.
In his introduction to Mexico City Noir, Taibo describes the capital city as having "the most corrupt police force on the planet." (A recent guidebook cites research showing that 13 percent of the megacity's incarcerated population are veterans of the police corps.) Taibo writes of the corruption and mayhem sewn by members and ex-members of "security" forces: "If you're lucky, you can stay away from it, you can keep your distance ... until, suddenly, without a clear explanation of how, you fall into the web and become trapped." He concludes, "You wake up in the morning with the uneasy feeling that the law of probabilities is working against you." If that's not noir, what the hell is?
The stories Taibo assembles shine a harsh light on systematic injustice and dire poverty amid, as Taibo puts it, "an economic crisis that's been going on for 25 years." Among the book's highlights are a street drunk who may have witnessed a police killing, a demented priest with some unsavory urges, and plenty of street-level contemplation of the violence of everyday life. There's also enough grisly narco-related mayhem to satisfy fans of the Saw movie franchise (assuming they can read).
But while stateside crime fiction often achieves such levels of violence at the expense of a moral center, and rarely works on more than one fairly obvious (if lucrative) level, these short stories are rooted in rage at the injustice that permeates life in Mexico City. The sometimes experimental narratives lay out the harsh socioeconomic realities of post-NAFTA Mexico, where the less-than-magical realism of the market makes the rich richer and the poor poorer — and the U.S.-backed drug war provides plenty of bad men with more guns. The warped humor here, especially in Taibo's contribution about the struggle for the soul of an embattled street corner, is part of the survival mechanism of people who have seen too much of life at its worst but must keep laughing anyway.
Akashic is complementing the release of Mexico City Noir by reissuing The Uncomfortable Dead (Akashic Books, 268 pages, $15.95), the novel Taibo wrote in collaboration with Zapatista spokesperson and strategist Subcommandante Marcos. In an interview included as part of the new edition's supplementary materials, Taibo describes the frenetic pace at which he and Marcos wrote alternate chapters for serialization in Mexican paper La Jornada, for a total of 12 chapters over 12 weeks. That ongoing deadline pressure has produced a giddy read, and if it doesn't deliver the kind of straightforward narrative and tight plotting that U.S. mystery readers look for, the literary pyrotechnics of these two impressive wordsmiths offer undeniable pleasures that eschew formulaic predictability.
Taibo's chapters feature his Coca-Cola-and-tobacco-addled, one-eyed detective Hector Belascoarn Shayne on the trail of a murderer named Morales. Marcos in turn writes about a Zapatista investigator named Elias, who is also searching for a man named Morales. The two stories wind up intersecting in a sometimes surreal jumble in Mexico City, where, in Taibo's words, there are "more movie theatres than Paris, more abortions than London, and more universities than New York."
The 1968 Mexico City police massacre of student activists is a key reference point in both books. That bloody repression was clearly a watershed period for Taibo and Marcos, profoundly influencing both of them. In the early 1980s, Marcos went south to Chiapas and joined the guerrillas who evolved into Zapatistas. Taibo became a history professor at the Metropolitan University of Mexico City and president of the International Association of Political Writers; He also went on to write '68, a memoir of sorts available in English from Seven Stories Press, and the experimental novel Calling All Heroes: A Manual for Taking Power (which features a survivor of the 1968 police massacres who enlists the aid of his childhood heroes Sherlock Holmes, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and D'Artagnan to help him in a new reform movement) just reprinted by local publisher PM Press.
Both Taibo and Marcos retained their radical politics and commitment to class struggle. They also share a fondness for absurdist humor, and both display an endearing willingness to laugh at themselves. Self-effacing humor is not a trait one usually associates with committed leftists, alas. The writing of Taibo and Marcos is a fine corrective to the unfortunate association of strident humorlessness with radical activism.
http://www.sfbg.com/2010/08/10/call-g...
Paco Ignacio Taibo II constructs a guide to corruption in Mexico City Noir
08.10.10 - 5:04 pm | Ben Terrall
LIT With volumes devoted to numerous U.S. cities and quite a few foreign capitals, it sometimes seems as if Akashic Books' expanding line of noir story anthologies will wind up covering virtually every major metropolis on earth. Because less gritty burgs like Portland, Ore.; Seattle; and Phoenix all have entries in the crime fiction series, it's only fair that Mexico City gets a nod.
Akashic must be commended for waiting several years until the great novelist Paco Ignacio Taibo II agreed to take on editing duties for Mexico City Noir (Akashic Books, 250 pages, $15.95). Taibo, who was born in Spain but has lived in Mexico since 1958, is the author of wildly entertaining and internationally successful mysteries that push the genre's boundaries in interesting directions. In addition to a dense biography of Che Guevara, he has written a doorstop-size book about Pancho Villa that should have been translated into English years ago.
In his introduction to Mexico City Noir, Taibo describes the capital city as having "the most corrupt police force on the planet." (A recent guidebook cites research showing that 13 percent of the megacity's incarcerated population are veterans of the police corps.) Taibo writes of the corruption and mayhem sewn by members and ex-members of "security" forces: "If you're lucky, you can stay away from it, you can keep your distance ... until, suddenly, without a clear explanation of how, you fall into the web and become trapped." He concludes, "You wake up in the morning with the uneasy feeling that the law of probabilities is working against you." If that's not noir, what the hell is?
The stories Taibo assembles shine a harsh light on systematic injustice and dire poverty amid, as Taibo puts it, "an economic crisis that's been going on for 25 years." Among the book's highlights are a street drunk who may have witnessed a police killing, a demented priest with some unsavory urges, and plenty of street-level contemplation of the violence of everyday life. There's also enough grisly narco-related mayhem to satisfy fans of the Saw movie franchise (assuming they can read).
But while stateside crime fiction often achieves such levels of violence at the expense of a moral center, and rarely works on more than one fairly obvious (if lucrative) level, these short stories are rooted in rage at the injustice that permeates life in Mexico City. The sometimes experimental narratives lay out the harsh socioeconomic realities of post-NAFTA Mexico, where the less-than-magical realism of the market makes the rich richer and the poor poorer — and the U.S.-backed drug war provides plenty of bad men with more guns. The warped humor here, especially in Taibo's contribution about the struggle for the soul of an embattled street corner, is part of the survival mechanism of people who have seen too much of life at its worst but must keep laughing anyway.
Akashic is complementing the release of Mexico City Noir by reissuing The Uncomfortable Dead (Akashic Books, 268 pages, $15.95), the novel Taibo wrote in collaboration with Zapatista spokesperson and strategist Subcommandante Marcos. In an interview included as part of the new edition's supplementary materials, Taibo describes the frenetic pace at which he and Marcos wrote alternate chapters for serialization in Mexican paper La Jornada, for a total of 12 chapters over 12 weeks. That ongoing deadline pressure has produced a giddy read, and if it doesn't deliver the kind of straightforward narrative and tight plotting that U.S. mystery readers look for, the literary pyrotechnics of these two impressive wordsmiths offer undeniable pleasures that eschew formulaic predictability.
Taibo's chapters feature his Coca-Cola-and-tobacco-addled, one-eyed detective Hector Belascoarn Shayne on the trail of a murderer named Morales. Marcos in turn writes about a Zapatista investigator named Elias, who is also searching for a man named Morales. The two stories wind up intersecting in a sometimes surreal jumble in Mexico City, where, in Taibo's words, there are "more movie theatres than Paris, more abortions than London, and more universities than New York."
The 1968 Mexico City police massacre of student activists is a key reference point in both books. That bloody repression was clearly a watershed period for Taibo and Marcos, profoundly influencing both of them. In the early 1980s, Marcos went south to Chiapas and joined the guerrillas who evolved into Zapatistas. Taibo became a history professor at the Metropolitan University of Mexico City and president of the International Association of Political Writers; He also went on to write '68, a memoir of sorts available in English from Seven Stories Press, and the experimental novel Calling All Heroes: A Manual for Taking Power (which features a survivor of the 1968 police massacres who enlists the aid of his childhood heroes Sherlock Holmes, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and D'Artagnan to help him in a new reform movement) just reprinted by local publisher PM Press.
Both Taibo and Marcos retained their radical politics and commitment to class struggle. They also share a fondness for absurdist humor, and both display an endearing willingness to laugh at themselves. Self-effacing humor is not a trait one usually associates with committed leftists, alas. The writing of Taibo and Marcos is a fine corrective to the unfortunate association of strident humorlessness with radical activism.
July 3, 2021
#1: Have never liked short stories. #2: As I read this book of short stories by Latino authors (because of an adult reading contest at my library), I kept thinking....is all Mexican writing this dark and abstruse? #3: Finishing this book and wanting to know what "noir" meant, I looked it up. #4: The definition is, "Noir is French for black and is a type of fiction or a film that has tough characters and is cynical, bleak and pessimistic in nature." #5: Aha! It's a genre and not one I care to read more of, AT ALL.
March 26, 2018
Niesamowite wprowadzenie (pierwszy rozdział) do świata Noir Meksyku, to trzeba zaznaczyć w osobnym zdaniu! A ponadto kilka wciągających opowiastek, które zdecydowanie przebiły Tel Awiw, były logiczne i miały w oku ten błysk. Były słabsze momenty, ale znacznie mniej. Chociaż może to znów ten sentyment? A! Najsłabsza historia z księdzem po zmianie płci, to i również trzeba zaznaczyć w osobnym zdaniu!
August 16, 2021
Great book, with the exception of Taibo's short story all, was pretty good, or at least interesting in the method, sadly the translation did miss a few things or translated things that should have staid in Spanish, like Las Lomas (a section fo the city) and in a story was translated as the Hills.
Still, it was a different way to see Mexico City.
Still, it was a different way to see Mexico City.
February 15, 2022
A collection of hit-and-miss (mostly, miss) stories under the vague rubric of crime fiction. I wanted to like this book (having traveled to Mexico City over a dozen times dating back to 1986), but neighborhoods seemed arbitrary (very little in most of the stories had the neighborhood integral to the tale), and most of the stories petered out before the final pages. Oh well.
March 30, 2025
I have read several. I like the concept of these Noir books. Specifically, I like to learn about the locations, the culture. Stereotypes etc. Many are dark /twisted. It’s a challenge for an author to write something short and powerful. A few stories in each series get me thinking and stick with me for at least a while. In the Mexico City, since I had lived there it had more meaning too.
June 16, 2017
Some of these stories were ok is the nicest thing I can think of to say here.
April 3, 2018
Weird, grisly, disturbing, intriguing.... it seems all the cops in Mexico City are corrupt or worse
August 19, 2011
A short volume with only 12 stories but some really weird ones where you are left at the end wondering what that was all about?? Of course we have the narco's and the usual blend of homeless children as well as sexual perverts. Combine these with the Catholic Church and the well known police corruption and this is the sum of the book-and one story combines all these theme! It looks like all the authors were either born in Mexico City or live there now. Naturally, despite the rather dark tales in this book they all wouldn't hesitate to recommend you visit their home "because this is the best city on the planet, in spite of itself."
September 19, 2020
Very uneven. I liked some of the stories, but others I outright hated. I can't figure out whether the texts were originally in Spanish and translated (there is a translator's name), or these were Mexican writers working in English. Either way, the English text sounded weird (Mexicans use "croquetas" to refer to cat kibble, croquettes is something different, it also uses the word "matrix" to refer to the womb). I was able to figure it out because I'm bilingual and have lived in Mexico, but it must be confusing to other readers. I'd give 5 stars to some of the stories, but 0 to others so I'm splitting the difference and leaving it at 3.
September 21, 2011
Some of these I would not call stories, as they're more like attempts at condensed novels, or episodes from a novel. They don't have to be "stories", obviously, for this anthology series, but those that certainly did read as such were far more interesting and successful reads. The story by the volume's editor (Taibo) stands out in particular. Also, a number of the selections here I would not call "noir" subgenre in the traditional sense; they're closer to the Hardboiled tradition. Overall, this ain't a bad read, it's just, yeah, okay.
February 21, 2016
Mexico City Noir offers up a dozen short stories, themed by neighbourhoods such as Condessa, Roma, Santa Fe, Coyoacan etc. The main characters range from victim to suspect to perpetrator, and the police are untrustworthy -- or worse. Dark, intensely violent, often with macabre humour, they make for an excellent introduction to Mexican crime fiction. A vicious little book, but nevertheless recommended for those who aren't faint of heart.
March 16, 2010
As uneven as you would expect from an anthology, but highly recomended if only because the good stuff is unfindable anywhere else in English. And the good stuff is really good. Why is there an entire tradition of noir writing we can't get our hands on? So frustrating.
February 10, 2011
a solid mixed bag. & PIT2 is always a good read.
Some much better than Portland Noir.
Some much better than Portland Noir.
February 29, 2012
Read my review here.
Want to read
November 4, 2012Not sure if I'll be able to finish this.. Very uneven and even bad wring. Maybe.
January 25, 2014
Interesting series of short stories around 'noir'. Next up for me will be 'Dublin Noir'.
Read
May 8, 2015Fiction M6114 2010
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews