Book review: Javier Ordiz (ed.), Estrategías y figuraciones de lo insólito en la narrative Mexicana (siglos XIX-XXI)

[First paragraph] Resulting from a MINECO supported project led by the editor alongside a group of researchers at the University of León, this volume comprises essays from eight scholars from Spanish Universities as well as a contribution from the Mexican novelist Daniela Tarazona. The thematic focus of ‘lo insólito’ is broad, and contributors cover a range of genres from terror and Magic Realism to the postmodern Gothic and science fiction. Whilst some authors theorise the parameters of their own literary examples of ‘lo insólito’ more than others, the reader is assisted by David Roas’s chapter, in which he provides a comparative definition of categories in the field. Concise and forthright, Roas draws sharp category boundaries that some may consider a little rigid (taxonomy in this field is notoriously contentious) but his contribution precisely enables that process of reflection through the course of the collection.