Taco

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Taco is a deep dive into the most iconic Mexican food from the perspective of a Mexico City native. In a narrative that moves from Mexico to the United States and back, S inchez Prado discusses the definition of the taco, the question of the tortilla and the taco shell, and the existence of the taco as a modern social touchstone that has been shaped by history and geography.

Challenging the idea of centrality and authenticity, S inchez Prado shows instead that the taco is a contemporary, transcultural food that has always been subject to transformation.

About the Author

Ignacio M. S inchez Prado is the Jarvis Thurston and Mona van Duyn Professor in Humanities at Washington University in Saint Louis, USA. He is the author of seven books, including Naciones intelectuales- Las fundaciones de la modernidad literaria mexicana 1917-1959 (2009, winner of the LASA Mexico 2010 Humanities Book Award) and the editor or co-editor of fifteen books. His public writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Words Without Borders and other publications. He serves as editor of two book series- Latin American Cinema at SUNY Press and Critical Mexican Studies at Vanderbilt University Press. He served as the Kluge Chair for the Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress in 2021.