The first and most important translation of this novel, which coined the debated title The Underdogs, is officially attributed to Enrique Munguía Jr., a Mexican diplomat stationed in Washington in 1928.[4] However, it has been recently rediscovered that Anita Brenner, a Mexican-American author and prominent supporter of Mexican arts during this era, also participated in the translation. As well as bringing this edition to life,[5] she is likely to have undertaken the most part or even directed the translation. Munguia being simply a facade for the Mexican Government. This theory is supported by her known participation in translating other Azuela novels, such as Marcela. There is no evidence of any other translations in which Munguia participated.
The first edition of The Underdogs was published by Brentano's in 1929, which was the largest bookstore in the US, with branches in four American cities as well as London and Paris. The original print run was 3,000, and the book's preface was written by the influential American journalist Carleton Beals. Illustrations were drawn by José Clemente Orozco, one of the most famous muralists of the era. There is strong evidence suggesting that the whole translation project was a part of a wider effort to create a new international image of Mexico as a modern and cultural country, initiated by the Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles and supported by the Mexican Renaissance, a movement of intellectuals, artists and writers (including Mariano Azuela). The role of Brenner who had coined the term Mexican Renaissance in her book Idols Behind Altars is generally uncredited, although writings from that work point to her being the hub and intellectual author of the whole project.
The first edition was an astounding success, receiving mostly positive critics from the Americans and even from the author himself, even if many questioned the name given as they think it didn't capture the true meaning of the expression Los de Abajo in Spanish, related more to the oppressed, the poor ones, those without privileges and the underdogs. About the reviews, Timothy Murad wrote:
"Ernest Gruening, writing in the Nation, considered the translation well done: Enrique Munguía, Jr. has performed creditably the task of rendering the almost untranslatable Mexican-Aztec argot into readable English." Isaac Goldberg, in The New World Monthly agreed: "Mr. Munguia's version . . . appears to have managed with unobtrusive skill the difficult task not only of translating, but what we might call ‘trans-psyching’ the story."[4]
About the title, Murad added:
"The objections to 'The Underdogs' for 'Los de Abajo' are indicative of the difficulties posed in the translation of the title. Strictly speaking, and dependent on context, 'los de abajo' as 'those from below,' or 'those underneath.' or 'those down below,' could refer as well to neighbors on the floor below or down the street as to a book on a bottom shelf. To a degree, when Azuela coined the phrase he intended the socio-cultural and political meanings (the poor, the lower classes, the uneducated, the powerless, the downtrodden) that are inextricably linked to its use as the title of the novel."[4]
The book became well known as Earl K. James suggested in 1932
"Waldo Frank in his foreword to this story of love, lust and revenge south of the Rio Grande, calls Mariano Azuela 'one of the most eminent novelists of contemporary Mexico.' Azuela is a doctor by profession and a revolutionary by conviction. Nor do his literary activities keep him from the pursuit of his profession or from working for social justice within a modest sphere. American readers may remember his 'The Underdogs.' The best novel of the Diaz Revolution of 1910 to appear here."[6]
Despite such shortcomings, the novel opened the American readers' doors to other Mexican and Latin-American novels and it became the base reference against others were compared, as suggested in the a review by Frank C, Hanighen in 1934:
"With the advent of Gregorio Lopez y fuentes's 'Tierra, La Revolución Agraria en México' a new Mexican novelist has arrived, for many years the colorful Marion Azuela, author of 'The Underdogs' and 'Marcela' dominated the scene" [7]
Since the first edition, the book has been translated again into English, a second translation by Frances Kellam Hendricks and Beatrice Berler was published in 1963 by Principia Press Trinity University, but it did not reach a widespread audience. Stanley L. Robe published in 1979 also offered a new translation published by the University of California Press based on the original 1915 serial edition.[4] A centenary translation was done by Ilan Stavans and Anna Moore for The Underdogs: A Norton Critical Edition. The Hackett Publishing Company edition, The Underdogs: with Related Texts, translated by Gustavo Pellón, also included contemporary reviews of Azuela's book, an excerpt from Anita Brenner's Idols Behind Altars (1929), and selections from John Reed's Insurgent Mexico (1914). Segio Weisman did another translation for Penguin Books in 2008. Still, the most current edition by Signet, uses the original translation by Munguia and Anita Brenner, as do most of the e-book versions available for Kindle.
