SOURCE: Dorward, Frances R. “The Short Story as a Vehicle for Mexican Literary Indigenismo.” Letras Femeninas 13, nos. 1-2 (1987): 53-66.

In the following essay, Dorward compares the indigenista short stories of Castellanos, María Lombardo de Caso, and Emma Dolujanoff.

In this article it is proposed to examine the largely contemporaneous short stories of three Mexican women writers: Rosario Castellanos, María Lombardo de Caso, and Emma Dolujanoff, in order to produce not only an evaluation of the indigenista short-story output of each individual author but also to cast some light on the relationship between cuento and novel in the evolution of Mexico's indigenista literature.

The short story has tended to be neglected in studies of Mexican literary indigenismo. One reason for this is perhaps that the various significant collections of short stories within the indigenista genre, mostly emerging alongside the later novels, complicate the chronological linear evolution from...