A masterful translation that embraces Azuela's lyrical portrayal of culture and landscape . . . The Underdogs tells the story of a courageous Indian farmer who almost unwittingly rises to a generalship in Pancho Villa's rebel army during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Mariano Azuela powerfully captures the anarchy and idealism of the time that culminated in revolution. Ahead of his time, Azuela challenged conventional narrative technique in ways that writers would not adopt for decades, especially with his emphasis on character development through dialogue rather than description. Critics also have noted the novel's postmodern absence of absolutes, noting that his attitude toward revolution is ambiguous at best. Fornoff's masterful translation, based on the most authentic manuscript, accurately reflects Azuela's style in very readable English. The accompanying translated essay-- "The Barefoot Iliad"--by another giant of Latin American literature, Carlos Fuentes, places the novel in the context of other epics throughout the history of literature.
