Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera and the Voices of Things

Abstract

In this article I consider the relationship between material culture and literary production at the turn of the century by examining a series of crónicas by Mexican modernista writer Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, "Memorias de un paraguas" and "Historia de un peso falso". I argue that these texts are exemplary in their unveiling a new relationship between words and objects, problematizing the same categories of subject, objects, commodity of thing.