The Underdogs ─ A Novel of the Mexican Revolution

The Underdogs
Mariano Azuela

Ten years after its publication in a small El Paso paper, The Underdogs achieved worldwide renown as the greatest novel of the Mexican Revolution. It tells the story of Demetrio Macias, a modest, peace-loving Indian, who is forced to side with the rebels to save his family. In the course of battle, he becomes a compulsive militarist almost despite himself, and his courage leads to a generalship in Pancho Villa’s army. But as the rebels suffer defeat after defeat, Macias loses prestige and moral purpose at the hands of turncoats, camp followers, and the peasants who once loved him. The social conscience and bitter irony of Azuela’s classic novel have earned him comparisons to Chekhov and Gorky. As Mexico continues to celebrate and struggle with the consequences of its great revolution, The Underdogs remains a powerful and insightful portrait of social upheaval.

Translated by E. Munguia Jr.
With an Introduction by Ana Castillo
and an Afterword by Max Parra

Mariano Azuela (1873-1952) became both a practicing physician and a writer, publishing his first novel, Andres Perez, maderista, in 1911. He supported Francisco I. Madero’s uprising against the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz and was made Director of Education of the State of Jalisco. After Madero’s assassination, he joined the army of Pancho Villa as a doctor. When counterrevolutionary forces temporarily gained control of Mexico, Azuela emigrated to El Paso, Texas, where in 1915 he wrote Los de abajo (The Underdogs). With this novel, Azuela became the first Mexican writer to give form to the reality of the Revolution. However, his disappointment with the corruption that followed soon began to manifest itself, as in the savage sarcasm of his later novels (Las moscas, La luciernaga, El camarada Pantoja). After withdrawing from public life, Azuela lived in Mexico City, writing and working as a doctor among the poor. He is buried in Mexico’s equivalent of Westminster Abbey, the Rotonda de Hombres Ilustres.

Ana Castillo is the author of several novels, including Peel My Love like an Onion and the American Book Award Winner The Mixquiahuala Letters, as well as non-fiction and poetry. She holds the Sor Juana de la Cruz chair at DePaul University.

Max Parra teaches Latin American literature at the University of California, San Diego. His scholarly work focuses on the literature, photography, and history of the Mexican Revolution. He is the author of Writing Pancho Villa’s Revolution: Rebels in the Literary Imagination of Mexico.