1873-1952 · Mexican physician and novelist of the Mexican Revolution
Posthumous or imagined likeness of Mariano Azuela. Source · CC BY-SA 4.0
About Mariano Azuela
Mariano Azuela (1873-1952) was a Mexican physician and novelist who served with revolutionary forces during the Mexican Revolution. His medical training and direct experience of war informed his unsentimental fiction. The Underdogs is his best-known work and one of the foundational novels of the Revolution.
The Underdogs follows Demetrio Macias, a peasant from Juchipila who joins the Mexican Revolution after conflict with federal soldiers makes ordinary life impossible. At first Demetrio's rebellion is local and personal: he flees with a band of men into the hills, fights effectively and becomes a leader because of courage, terrain knowledge and charisma.
