ABSTRACT
In the mid-1930s the Mexican State set out to define 'Mexican literature' and form a national canon which would reflect and reinforce its nation-building agenda. To this end, in 1934 the interim government of Abelardo L. Rodríguez established a national prize for literature, the Premio Nacional de Literatura. The State required a national literature which would consolidate post-revolutionary nationhood and promote its values. The decree may have provided a new model for literary production and criticism or it may have formally established pre-existing preferences and trends in literary criticism. There was a clear consensus amongst the judges and reviewers in the national press that El indio combined aesthetic value with social purpose in its representation of Mexico's indigenous population. El indio's contribution to contemporary debate about how to integrate Mexico's indigenous communities was considered so significant that reviewers elevated the novel out of the realm of fiction and into that of fact.
