The Underdogs

Recommended by Hugh Thomson, and 1 others. See all reviews

Ranked #19 in Mexican, Ranked #28 in Mexico

The greatest novel of the Mexican Revolution, in a brilliant new translation by an award-winning translator

The Underdogs is the first great novel about the first great revolution of the twentieth century. Demetrio Macias, a poor, illiterate Indian, must join the rebels to save his family. Courageous and charismatic, he earns a generalship in Pancho Villa's army, only to become discouraged with the cause after it becomes hopelessly factionalized. At once a spare, moving depiction of the limits of political idealism, an authentic representation of Mexico's peasant life, and a...
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Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of The Underdogs from the world's leading experts.

Hugh Thomson I first read this when I was 16 or 17 and it made a strong impression on me. It’s a tough, picaresque novel of the Mexican revolution and of what it was like for the soldiers in the north. It’s a good account of how anarchic that revolution must have been and it still has a lot of verve and power, with images of troops spilling out of the trains, the Dorados, the ‘golden ones’, Pancho Villa’s cavalry. [Pancho Villa 1878-1923 was the colourful bandit-hero of the Mexican revolution]. (Source)


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