El seductor de la patria

• As a novelistic reimagining of the endless uprisings, betrayals, overthrows, and power shifts that comprise nineteenth-century Mexican history, El seductor de la patria struck me as wonderful. With a sharp and shameless pen, Serna crafts an unforgiving portrait of the genesis of the nation’s political life: teeming with despots, opportunists, and megalomaniacs (and Guadalupe Victoria) (long live Guadalupe Victoria).

• Enrique Serna narrates the murky corners of History, capturing the national spirit through the venomous tongue of our great nineteenth-century villain: Antonio López de Santa Anna, the repeat president blamed for "selling" half the country’s territory to the United States. The result is a caustic tale read with bursts of laughter, where heroes appear naked and defenseless, and History is nothing more than self-parody: a reminder that from then until now, nothing has truly changed.

• Santa Anna is a rogue whose ruinous tale Enrique Serna reconstructs with erudition, patience, flashes of humor, and a healthy dose of wicked wit—a character who only lacks the ability to laugh at himself to be truly complete in the polished mirror he commissions for his own reflection. Serna places before us an extraordinary character who holds an extraordinary image of himself.

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