Campobello

Nellie (or Nelly) Francisca Ernestina Campobello Luna (November 7, 1900 – July 9, 1986) was a Mexican writer, notable for having written one of the few chronicles of the Mexican Revolution from a woman’s perspective. Cartucho chronicles her experience as a young girl in Northern Mexico at the height of the struggle between forces loyal to Pancho Villa and those who followed Venustiano Carranza. She moved to Mexico City in 1923, where she spent the rest of her life and associated with many of the most famous Mexican intellectuals and artists of the epoch. Like her half-sister Gloria, a well-known ballet dancer, she was also known as a dancer and choreographer. She was the director of the Mexican National School of Dance.
(Wikipedia)

Campobello on History through the Eyes of a Child

Campobello restores the idea that something was truly at stake in a conflict that can otherwise appear so chaotic and disorderly: at its best, it was fought for the right to play, to laugh, to feel, to be free from constraint.

See also the conversation video with Ryan Long.

Audio | Transcript | Slides | Conversation

  • Campobello, Nellie. Cartucho: Tales of the Struggle in Northern Mexico. Trans. Doris Meyer. Cartucho and My Mother’s Hands. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1988. 1-89.

On Nellie Campobello

A conversation about Cartucho, with Ryan Long (University of Maryland)

Audio | Lecture

Campobello videos

This is Durango_Nellie Campobello:

The Only Account of the Mexican Revolution Written by a Woman: Nellie Campobello:

24. Soldaderas II. Nellie Campobello’s Child Narrator in ‘Cartucho’ Reclaims the Mexican Revolution:

  • Aguilar Mora, Jorge. “El silencio de Nellie Campobello.” Kipus: Revista andina de letras 12 (2000): 55-78.
  • Faverón-Patriau, “La rebelión de la memoria: testimonio y reescritura de la realidad en Cartucho de Nellie Campobello.” Mester 32.1 (2003): 53-71.
  • Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element of Culture. Boston: Beacon, 1955.
  • Izquierdo, Lucas. “Nellie Campobello’s Cartucho (1931): Bandits, Politics, and Death.” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 37.2 (Winter 2013): 339-354.
  • Janowitz, Nathaniel. “Get to Know Sotol, the Dangerously Delicious Cousin of Tequila and Mezcal.” Esquire. November 1, 2017.
  • Parra, Max. Writing Pancho Villa's Revolution: Rebels in the Literary Imagination of Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.
  • “Sotol: will Mexican Moonshine Conquer the US?” Mexico News Daily. September 23, 2022.
  • Vanden Berghe, Kristin. “Alegría en la revolución y tristeza en tiempos de paz. El juego en Cartucho y Las manos de mamá de Nellie Campobello.” Literatura Mexicana 21.2 (2010): 151-170.

Sotol is a spirit distilled from a type of desert asparagus that has been consumed for millennia across a broad swathe of northern Mexico and parts of the USA. Unlike tequila, however, it has yet to make many inroads in the global marketplace. Interviewed by Esquire magazine, one contemporary “sotol entrepreneur” says that “Sotol isn’t for everyone. It’s rough sometimes, it’s for the outlaws, it’s for the ones that live free, the ones who travel to unknown places” (Janowitz, “Get to Know Sotol”). But in 2002, the Mexican government lent the drink legitimation and legal protection by granting it a designation of “denomination of origin”: in Mexican law, and in the eyes of the World Intellectual Property Organization, the spirit can only be labelled “sotol” if it is produced in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, or Durango. This designation is not recognized by the United States, where it is contested by Texan producers: yet another point of friction on the US/Mexico border (“Sotol”). Such tensions are hardly new. During the Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa smuggled sotol into Texas, maintaining a “stash house” near El Paso. US Customs raided this Texan hideout in 1915, seizing over half a million dollars in cash, gold, and jewelry. This was one factor in the rising antagonism that led to Villa’s famous cross-border raid on Columbus, New Mexico, in March, 1916, the last time the continental USA has been invaded by foreign troops.

Campobello questions

The following questions are taken from your blog posts…

The Child Narrator

If we are to believe Campobello was a teenager at the time of the revolution, why do you think she chose to age the narrator down?

in the last two books we see the stories depicted through the eyes of a child. In your opinion, why do you think it is important to view historical events through the eyes of the youth who as lived through them? What advantages or disadvantages does it bring to our understanding of a certain time period?

Isn’t Campobello’s use of a “child narrator” a form of play-acting? Do you think Campobello successfully portrayed the war in a “child narrator’s perspective”, despite writing the book as an adult?

I know reading the story, knowing it was from the perspective of a child made it different from other recounts of the revolution. Do you think the story would have been as popular had the author taken a different approach?

Do you feel that viewing from a child’s perspective provides a unique and powerful perspective on the events of the war?

How do you think the book would differ if it took on another perspective, such as an adult or teenager?

Affect

Did any part of the book make you “uncomfortable”? How do you think Campobello was feeling during this time?

How did you feel reading this book? Was anyone else completely shocked by the gruesomeness of each short story?

Do you think the utilization of poetry and emotion in contrast with violence and brutality during this time is more prominent due to Cartucho being written by a female writer?

Form

why do you think Cartucho‘s chapters are so short? What effect does this brevity have on the reader?

At what point in the story did you become accustomed to the fragmented structure of storytelling and how do you think this type of story structure affected how you understood the narrator’s character?

Other

What do others think of the role of Villa throughout this story? How much do you think his depiction is mythological and how much is personal?

Whose character in the book stood out for you the most?

Campobello admits to recounting only what “impressed” her the most, and not what she did not understand. Given that she is writing based on teenage memories, from the perspective of her childhood – what does this statement actually say about what she chose to share? For example: Are we being told what teenage Campobello recalls, or merely what Campobello feels she would have recalled as her childhood self?

As Jon mentioned in his lecture, there is a discrepancy in Campobello’s reported date of birth, some being a decade or so apart (which puts quite a big gap). Do you think it would have mattered if she wrote it when she was younger or older given how her memory would be affected by her age as well?

Have you revisited a childhood memory and felt differently about it now that you are older? Or Have you noticed that the order of your memories differs from someone else’ same Memory?

I wonder if there are other instances where you have become accustomed to something as you have gotten older that you would not have imagined gaining familiarity with or proximity to when you were a child?

Do you have ‘bedtime stories’ you still think about? It could be a regular fantasy story or maybe it’s something that actually happened that someone has made into a story for you.

Storytelling seems to be a very unique talent (that I do not possess!); would you consider yourself an effective storyteller? How do you know?

What is your favourite and least favourite aspect of reading novels written by young authors?

Does anyone recommend any other sources that provide information about the Mexican Revolution?

More resources on Campobello >>