Polvos de arroz, by Sergio Galindo. A look at female old age during the modernization of Mexico

Abstract

Polvos de arroz, Sergio Galindo’s first novel, was published in 1958 and portrays Mexico City as a space where recent history has been transcended and space becomes a metaphor for modernity. In the novel, there is a counterpoint between the city and the province, and its main character is an old woman from the province of Veracruz, so that in the novel not only the clichés of the modern city coexist, but also the traditions of a Mexico of the past. This paper will therefore seek to show how the novel depicts the ambivalence of the country during the 1950s, and in particular how the old woman –as a representative of the tradition rooted in Porfirianism– is unable to find her own place in the modern world represented by Mexico City.