College Literature

Abstract:

Mexican Canadian writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia's meteoric rise after the publication of Mexican Gothic (2020) has placed her at the center of contemporary genre fiction. This essay discusses the ways in which her approach to genre, and particularly to the Gothic, is informed by a citational dynamic in relation to what the article calls her "Mexican Archive"—that is, the rich network of references to the history and symbolic production of Mexico. The essay contends that this archive sets Moreno-Garcia apart from other Latinx fiction writers in her disengagement from US-centered ideas of race and Mexicanness. The article discusses in the first part the ways in which we could think about the role of Mexico and Mexican culture in Moreno-Garcia's work. In the second part, a reading of Mexican Gothic unfolds the ways in which this archive intersects with the citational practices and symbolic conventions of genre fiction.