BAVISPE
CARLOS RENÉ PADILLA
As is the case in hundreds of Mexican towns —especially those stranded in the middle of the desert—, if you were to ask someone who isn’t from the region where Bavispe is, they might reply that they heard the name once, but they probably wouldn’t be able to pinpoint its location. It seems that in order for many of these towns to properly exist in the national imagination, they need a true bard that will make them his own, who will extract the passions, fears, desires and beliefs of the inhabitants, and use his words to put them on the map.
This is exactly what Carlos René Padilla has done in the tales contained in Bavispe, a title that captures the history and the stories of that little town crushed by the oppressive heat and apparent monotony, transforming them into unforgettable narratives inhabited by ghosts and living beings ready to snatch any sense of calm from us as we read.
In the manner of the finest composers of smalltown ballads, Padilla’s narration uses language that is often poetic but at the same time rooted in orality, a rhythm that is maintained from the beginning to the end of every piece. The book presents a variety of rural dramas ranging from ghosts roaming the streets to violent vengeances, from irony to a flirtation with the absurd, from love to hate, in a close, organic and cohesive universe: that of the town itself over the years.
By the end of this collection of stories, readers will not only know how to locate Bavispe, but will be able to talk about it with experience, understanding and imagination.
The people have found their bard and Bavispe is the proof.
- Eduardo Antonio Parra
Winner of the José Fuentes Mares National Prize for Literature 2022
Published in Mexico: Nitro / Press 2022
Carlos René Padilla first saw the lights of the patrol cars in Agua Prieta, Sonora, in 1977. His earliest crime was studying Communication Sciences at the University of Sonora. He won the Sonoran Book Contest 2015 in the novel genre with Amorcito Corazón (NITRO/PRESS, 2016) and the Premio Nacional de Novela Negra: Una vuelta de tuerca in 2016 with Yo soy Espáiderman, published under the title Yo soy el araña by Reservoir Books in 2019. His most recent book, Bavispe, is a collection of short stories exploring themes of machismo, criminality, gender violence, migration and nostalgia for rural life in Sonora. The collection was awarded the José Fuentes Mares National Prize for Literature in 2022. He has three more titles stashed away in his safe: El cielo se cambió de dirección (short stories), Renuencia al destino (poems) and Un día de estos, Fabiola (novel). He has worked for the newspapers Expreso and El Imparcial, where he won a prize for "In-depth Journalism" from the Inter-American Press Association. He is currently under 'house arrest' in Ciudad Obregón, where he cooks for his wife and daughter, writes, and at night escapes to La Taberna de Moe, a bar where they say he’s never paid for a single drink. @carlos_rene_padilla / @carlosrenepadil