Pillar of Salt

The renowned writer describes coming of age during the violent Mexican Revolution and living as an openly homosexual man in a brutally machista society. Salvador Novo (1904–1974) was a provocative and prolific cultural presence in Mexico City through much of the twentieth century. With his friend and fellow poet Xavier Villaurrutia, he cofounded Ulises and Contemporáneos , landmark avant-garde journals of the late 1920s and 1930s. At once “outsider” and “insider,” Novo held high posts at the Min