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Sus libros, mas que precio, tienen valor.
Si alguien es complice en literatura,
ese es el editor. Dime quien es tu editor
y te dire quien eres. Dime a quienes
editas y te dire quien puedes ser.
Antonio Magana-Esquivel(1)
For the past thirty years, the imprint "Editorial Joaquin Mortiz" has stood for innovation, quality, and prestige in Mexican literature. After it was founded in 1962, Joaquin Mortiz quickly emerged as the premier literary publisher in Mexico and has provided readers with many of the novels and short stories now recognized as landmarks defining the contemporary canon of Mexican fiction. Most studies of Mexican narrative of the 1960s have tended to emphasize the dichotomy between the elitist self-conscious experimentation of escritura writing and the irreverent youthful exuberance of onda writing. Shifting the focus from texts to publishers, however, reveals a different configuration. Editorial Joaquin Mortiz actually encouraged both these trends by cultivating the work of escritura authors such as Salvador Elizondo, Juan Garcia Ponce, and Jose Emilio Pacheco along with those of onda authors like Gustavo Sainz and Jose Agustin. Moreover, during its first two years, Joaquin Mortiz staked much of its early reputation on promoting two Mexican novels now fundamental to women's writing throughout Latin America: Oficio de tinieblas (1962) by Rosario Castellanos and Los recuerdos del porvenir (1963) by Elena Garro. Thus Editorial Joaquin Mortiz has greatly influenced the development of contemporary Mexican narrative.
The thirtieth anniversary of Editorial Joaquin Mortiz in October 1992 caused many Mexican writers and critics to assess the company's contributions to Mexican culture and to highlight the firm's prestige. Jose Agustin, now famous for helping initiate la novela de la onda with his canonical De perfil (published by Joaquin Mortiz in 1966), commented: "Pocas editoriales se han convertido como Mortiz en 'el sueno' de los escritores mexicanos. Muchos de ellos, incluyendome por supuesto, siempre consideraron que publicar en Joaquin Mortiz era una meta que valia la pena, aunque hubiese que competir con numerosos manuscritos (era celebre el temible e inmenso mueble donde yacian cientos de obras que aspiraban a publicacion) o esperar dos, tres, cuatro anos para ver el libro impreso. ..."(2) Journalist Jaime Aviles questioned the enduring literary quality of onda literature but praised Joaquin Mortiz nonetheless for...