MEMORY IN ORDER: FROM THE IMAGINED COMMUNITY TO THE LITERATE NATION : Five stories of Mexican literature in search of nationality

All literary history is a history of histories. This essay is composed of three distinct parts, but, to the same extent, they are interrelated. It begins with the construction of the concept of nation, which becomes relevant as long as it can be recognized as a central element of cultural production, of literary histories. Then, there is the development of an intense -and perhaps irresolvable- relationship between two disciplines: history, in its aspect of historiography of the literary, and literary studies, to finally arrive at the review of five literary histories between which a century passes. Only the histories of Francisco Pimentel, José María Vigil, Carlos González Peña, Julio Jiménez Rueda and Beatriz Garza Cuarón are considered. Between them, one hundred years of Mexican literary histories “slip away” like grains of sand, but it is hoped that the reader will find in this reading a counterpoint between reflection and action, ideas and cultural practices, and that it will deepen the discussion proposed here.