De Le livre rouge a El libro rojo: la mexicanización de un proyecto literario francés

The article peruses the influence of Le livre rouge (1863) in Vicente Riva Palacio’s and Manuel Payno’s El libro rojo (1870). It expounds how those responsible for El libro rojo, instead of just copying the French model, adapted it into a certain written and visual representation of history: violent, liberal, and providential. The article’s structure follows the Mexican version’s four innovations: martyrological hagiographies were elaborated instead of disquieting biographies; lithography, of greater expressive power, was substituted for the engraving technique; a taxonomy of violence was discarded in favor of a periodization based on the spillage of blood; lastly, the oeuvre was endowed with a liberal optimism absent from the French text. Thus, El libro rojo is situated within a context of transatlantic influences, which highlights its uniqueness, and illuminates the liberal and triumphalistic representation of Mexican history.