The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution

"The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution," by Mariano Azuela, is the first great novel about the Mexican Revolution. Almost a century after its first publication, it is still as timely as ever. This lively translation of the Mexican classic, by E. Mungia, Jr., takes us into the Mexico's violent and spirited first days and chronicles the upheaval unleashed by the Mexican revolution. Demetrio Macias, a poor, illiterate Indian, must join the rebels to save his family. Courageous and charismatic, he earns a generalship in Pancho Villa's army, only to become discouraged with the cause after it becomes hopelessly factionalized. At once a spare, moving depiction of the limits of political idealism, an authentic representation of Mexican peasant life, and a timeless portrait of revolution, "The Underdogs" is an iconic novel of the Latin American experience and the disillusionment of war. In "The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution," Azuela marries a natural gift for fiction to his eyewitness analysis. The result is a novel of unquestionable artistic value, but also of courage, sensitivity, and great historical significance.