The mythification of haiku in Mexican literature

The insatiable quest for the exotic that characterized the modernist movement in Latin America spawned the importation of poetic genres from geographically and culturally distant countries leaving profound imprints on literary traditions in the region. Mexican poetry was particularly marked by exotic modernist representations of the far East and the new creative movements they inspired. However, in many cases this enthusiasm for novelty would translate new poetic forms into orientalized representations or conceptual distortions. The introduction of haiku into Mexican literary circles exemplifies this orientalist process and the propagation of essentialist discourse related to this poetic genre. Theories rooted in nihonjinron on the nature of haiku by prominent Mexican literary figures like the Noble laureate Octavio Paz, generated orientalist notions on the historic development and literary conceptualization of this Japanese poetry. The present essay attempt to shed light on how nihonjinron discourse propagated orientalist notions on haiku that shaped the reception and the conceptualization of this poetic genre in Mexican literary circles.