Palinuro de México is the second novel by the Mexican writer Fernando del Paso, published in 1977 and winner of the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 1982. Del Paso has said that this is his favorite novel of which he has written.
The work lacks an argument or a plot itself. In broad outlines, he tells the story and the adventures of Palinuro, a medical student who lives in a pension in the Plaza de Santo Domingo with his cousin Estefanía, with whom he maintains a loving relationship. The protagonist is partially autobiographical, since Paso was also a medical student in his youth, but left the race when he realized that he could not bear to see the dead bodies and the smell of blood. In the words of the author, Palinuro is "the character that I was and wanted to be and that the others believed I was and also the one I could never be although I wanted to be."
The tone of the novel is playful, rabelesian, abounds in word games, alliterations, puns, surreal images and of all kinds, from history to literature and film. Reception
It was translated into French by Michel Bibard and published in Fayard in 1985. Awards
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