The Lightning of August

Jorge Ibargüengoitia · 1928–1983 · Mexico

Originally Los relámpagos de agosto (Spanish) · translated by Irene del Corral

Why it matters

A retired general's self-serving memoirs blunder unwittingly through the Mexican Revolution's mythology, undercutting his own heroism with every boastful page. Ibargüengoitia's first novel is Mexican letters' funniest demolition of revolutionary sanctimony.

At a glance

A comic, unreliable-narrator memoir undercuts itself, though the plot stays simple and linear.