“I see Christopher Domínguez Michael as a critic—to put it in colloquial terms—of the old school, a critic through and through. And he is a luxury to Spanish-language letters at a time when, what’s more, the reviewer of books has ceased to have—if he ever had—any influence on readers.” —Enrique Vila-Matas
“Christopher Domínguez Michael carries on an important tradition in the history of Mexican literature: a dialogue with the West, which began in the late nineteenth century and continued with Alfonso Reyes, with Julio Torri, and then with my generation.” —Octavio Paz
“It is precisely this faith in taste that has led him to strip down his style: with prose we might almost call diabolical, Domínguez Michael writes literature about literature, and thereby he chases, in his own way, the harsh desire to last.” —Liliana Muñoz
“In his monumental biography of Fray Servanco, C.D.M. went to the Vatican Archives to trace the tracks of church law in the history of our nations.” —Tulio Halperin Donghi
“From a very young age, Christopher Domínguez Michael threw himself into a task that, in a discipline as complacent yet cruel as our own, no one wanted to do: he undertook an anthology—perhaps the most all-encompassing to date—of the Mexican literature of the twentieth century, and he has written criticism and essays with clear-headedness, literary rigor, and historical perspective. In and of itself, his book on Fray Servando Teresa de Mier assures him a prominent place in literary historiography. As a writer, I sometimes have the impression that he knows more about us than we do about ourselves.” —Ana García Bergua
“Christopher and I started out together at Vuelta. He is the person who knows the most about everything. You can’t come up with a literary subject he doesn’t know more about than you.” —Fernando Savater
“In the world of Spanish-language letters, I don’t know anyone who takes the profession of the literary critic as seriously or as cautiously as Christopher Domínguez Michael. He is not just a scholar, but also a lover of literature who, through his body of work, has led me to discover authors from many times and many places.” —Guadalupe Nettel
“He, as a Mexican literary critic—a reader of Edmund Wilson, Borges, and Sainte-Beuve—the son of a Jewish, New-Yorker mother, is a descendant of the Jewish intellectuals of New York—the ‘New York Intellectuals’—whose ancestors, just two generations ago, had been folk who worked at small trades, dedicated to reading one single book that, having been written by God, contained all books. Like the New York Intellectuals, Domínguez Michael set about reading not one book that contained all books, but all books as if they were one.” —Enrique Krauze
“It is not by chance that Domínguez hits just the right key at the root of his work. One of his best books of essays, Tiros en el concierto, has to do precisely with the relationship between literature and politics. While Stendhal judged that, in a short story or novel, ideological reflection could come across as a gunshot in the middle of symphony, Domínguez focuses on writing not subordinated to politics, but rather to the round-trip relationship between the imagination and social life in which it exists. No other Mexican critic has dug so deep into this ground. His monumental biography of Fray Servando Teresa de Mier confirmed his status as the exceptional interpreter of a mind in the world that made said mind possible. In relaying the encyclopedic relationship Paz had with his century, he attained one of the peaks of our intellectual life.” —Juan Villoro
“I can say for sure that Octavio would be happy to know that the young man he met on the afternoon of August 4, 1988 in his office at Vuelta is celebrating the maestro’s hundredth birthday by offering us this book. Future students of Paz’s work will turn to Christopher’s biography, not only for its documentary value but because he wrote it with—and from the—heart.” —Elena Poniatowska
“The relationships between citizens of the Republic of Letters are enthralling precisely because, in them, we clearly see we can work from this principle of friendship, we can classify authors and better understand them by comparison. In the case of Octavio Paz, Domínguez Michael shows how a whole community formed around him, little by little, and how this community also gave guarantees to other communities, indeed forming a modern-day Republic of Letters.” —Marc Fumaroli
“Christopher Domínguez-Michael’s importance in the world of letters is equivalent to the uniqueness of his intellectual personality. The scope of his erudition is defined by his omnivorous reading habits. His critical gaze is keenly able to discern unprecedented aspects of classical works and, at once, he does not refrain from reading contemporary authors as if he is always projecting them into an imaginary future Library of Alexandria. It was once said that an unexamined life is not worth living. Domínguez Michael would not disagree but would certainly add: the library is the proper place to foster such examination.” —João Cezar de Castro Rocha
“That which is not tradition is plagiarism, wrote Eugenio D’Ors. It is perhaps this principle that makes of Christopher Domínguez Michael a fundamental author who, from the cornices of criticism, biography, historiography, and the essay, has constructed a colossal body of work that has come to us in dribs and drabs over the course of thirty years. He has made tireless offerings to esteemed journals and papers, besides his robust and essential books, all without ever losing sight of the everyday reader: the same reader whom academic pedantry and the tyranny of the ‘paper’ have chased away from the land of reading, and for whom, luckily, Domínguez Michael’s work has become a sort of antidote thanks to his infectious passion for cultural dialogue. With an exacting, enthusiastic style, critical but fair, unafraid of controversy and valuing debate as a part of thought, Christopher’s work forms a constellation that, through imaginary penstrokes, sketches an outline of Latin American writings and the paths they have taken, making of reading and its interpretation an act of cartography as well as an aesthetic experience coming close to the erotics of art of which Susan Sontag spoke.” —Cecilia García Huidobro
“To envision Domínguez Michael as a writer means to imagine a tightrope-walker with opposing qualities: a strong tread, honest, straightforward, without halftones, and at the same time a remarkable selective delicacy. An unusual virtue among the ambivalent guild of the critics: knowing how to distinguish. The author of Tiros en el concierto may hit you in the ankles, but never in the back. And his praise falls on precision, never meanness. The price for this is a clear and necessary haughtiness, proper to one who is adept at discerning hierarchies, ruling on levels of greatness, weighing up legacies, sounding out echoes, and drawing parallels. Excellent at depicting the arc and the qualitative and ideological fluctuations of a writer (and in what ways a writer betrays himself), he cleverly records the ins and outs, the hidden details, the crossroads, and the crucifixions born of the critical history of literature. He is adept and patient enough to dedicate astute parentheses to admirations and setbacks, conquests, regrets, and restarts. These are the flanges of his historical aptitude. Domínguez Michael is ideal for an argument and, therefore, ideal as a critic. If he sometimes seems to rush to take a stance, it is because every essayist or reviewer is fated to do so as long as the next book awaits.” —Matías Serra Bradford
“In the literary field of the Spanish language, the figure of Christopher Domínguez Michael occupies a central space: he is the authentic, independent critic, who handles sophisticated references and a cutting style with which he not only analyzes the authors of his own country, but also configures a broad map of his language. His essays and reviews are a pleasure to read, as they are written with passion and intelligence that convince and entice.” —Matías Rivas
Christopher Domínguez Michael
Complete Works
El crítico sin estatua. Sauvage Atelier, León (Guanajuato), 2025.
Tiros en el concierto: Literatura mexicana del siglo V. Grano de Sal, Mexico City, 2023.
Ensayos reunidos, 1983-2012. El Colegio Nacional, Mexico City, 2023.
Maiacovski punk y otros perfiles del siglo XXI. Taurus, Mexico City, 2022.
Vida de fray Servando. Grano de Sal, Mexico City, 2022.
Octavio Paz nel suo secolo. Mimesis, Milan, 2022.
Ateos, esnobs y otras ruinas. Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, 2020.
Ensayos reunidos, 1984-2007. El Colegio Nacional, Mexico City, 2020.
Walser, Bolaño, Benjamín. Papeles Sauvages, Rio de Janeiro, 2019.
La literatura mexicana del siglo XIX. El Colegio de México, 2019.
Octavio Paz en su siglo. Aguilar, Mexico City, 2015. (revised and expanded edition in 2019)
¿Qué es un crítico literario? Discurso de ingreso. El Colegio Nacional, Mexico City, 2018.
Personaje, retrato y fantasma. Ai Trani, Mexico City, 2017.
La innovación retrógrada: Literatura mexicana 1805-1863. El Colegio de México, 2017.
Octavio Paz dans son siècle. Gallimard, Paris, 2014.
Los decimonónicos. Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile, 2012.
Diccionario crítico de la literatura mexicana del siglo XX, 1955-2011. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 2012.
Profetas del pasado: Quince voces de la historiografía sobre México. Era, Mexico City, 2011.
Dictionary of Mexican Literature. Dalkey Archive Press, Chicago, 2010.
El XIX en el XXI. Sexto Piso, Mexico City, 2010.
José Vasconcelos. Antología general. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 2010.
Para entender a Jorge Luis Borges. Nostra, Mexico City, 2010.
Diccionario crítico de la literatura mexicana del siglo XX, 1955-2005. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 2009.
La sabiduría sin promesa: Vida y letras del siglo XX (third edition). Debate, Mexico City, 2009.
La sabiduría sin promesa: Vida y letras del siglo XX (second edition). Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, 2009.
Vida de fray Servando. Era, Mexico City, 2004. (Premio Xavier Villaurrutia)
Toda suerte de libros paganos. Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico City, 2000.
La sabiduría sin promesa: Vida y letras del siglo XX. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico City, 1999.
Servidumbre y grandeza de la vida literaria. Joaquín Mortiz, Mexico City, 1998.
William Pescador. Era, Mexico City, 1997.
Tiros en el concierto: Literatura mexicana del siglo V. Era, Mexico City, 1997.
La literatura mexicana del siglo XX (con José Luis Martínez). Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico City, 1995.
La utopía de la hospitalidad. Vuelta, Mexico City, 1992.
José Vasconcelos: Obra selecta. Biblioteca Ayacucho, Caracas, 1992.
Antología de la narrativa mexicana del siglo XX, II. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 1990.
Antología de la narrativa mexicana del siglo XX, I. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City, 1989.
Jorge Cuesta y el demonio de la política. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de Iztapalapa, Mexico City, 1986.
Prizes, Honors, and Positions
1987–2000. Editor of La Gaceta, Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City.
1988. Joins the editorial team of the magazine Vuelta.
1993–2015. Co-editor of the cultural supplement El Ángel de Reforma, with Sergio González Rodríguez.
1993–2017. Member of Mexico’s Sistema Nacional de Creadores (FONCA).
1997. Premio Guillermo Rousset Banda for Tiros en el concierto: Literatura mexicana del siglo V.
1999–present. Founder, editor, and literary adviser of Letras Libres.
2003. Jury member for the Premio Internacional de Novela Rómulo Gallegos, Caracas.
2004. Premio Xavier Villaurrutia for Vida de Fray Servando.
2005. Gives the “Cátedra Alfonso Reyes” lecture at Sorbonne University, Paris.
2005–2006. Jury member for the Premio Internacional Juan Rulfo at the Guadalajara International Book Fair.
2006. Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
2007. Premio del Círculo de Críticos de Arte de Chile (for best literary work published in 2009) for La sabiduría sin promesa: Vida y letras del siglo XX.
2013–2014. Visiting professor at the University of Chicago with a Tinker Grant.
2015–present. Contributor to Confabulario, cultural supplement of El Universal.
November 3, 2017. Inaugurated as member of Mexico’s Colegio Nacional.
2017. Edmundo O’Gorman Scholars Program at Columbia University, New York.
2023. Jury member for the Strega Prize in Italy.
2024. Columnist at ABC, Madrid.
Translated by Arthur Malcolm Dixon
