This chapter contextualizes Mastretta’s work with specific reference to Puerto libre (1993), El mundo iluminado (1998) and El cielo de los leones within current postmodernist and more specifically Post-Boom writing. Here we examine how both Puerto libre, El mundo iluminado and El cielo de los leones, are defined by their postmodern elusiveness where shimmering surfaces are occasionally interrupted by unforeseen depths by exploring the themes of multiplicity, order and disorder and probe the mind of the marginal Other.

Few would disagree that Mastretta’s fiction is accessible, noticeable for its uncomplicated style which works against the main thrust of much postmodern writing which favours self-reflexivity and draws attention to its own status as a production. Yet it is nevertheless tempting to use such a term as postmodernism when analysing Mastretta’s works. In very general terms, postmodernism, like modernism, expresses the need to reject boundaries between high and low forms of art and rigid genre distinctions; resorts to a self-conscious expression by emphasizing pastiche, fragmentation, discontinuity and ambiguity. The main thrust of this chapter is to highlight how Mastretta’s Puerto Libre, El mundo iluminado and El cielo de los leones interweave the biographical and the fictional, often rejecting rigid genre distinctions by playfully mixing pastiche with parody, bricolage with irony. Mastretta offers a distinctive blend of the popular and the radical, erases the traditional boundaries between high culture and popular culture. As will be seen in the next section, these essayistic texts are truly postmodern in their celebration of the trivial and the chaos brought about by the contemporary world.

‘Desorden y Multiplicidad’

Consider the following two quotations: