Vicente Leñero

Vicente Leñero was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico in 1933. He first studied engineering, then journalism.
His journalism and literary writing have won him a variety of awards and prizes as well as three scholarships.
He has written novels, and dramas for theater and television.

El cordoncito is one of two stories he has published for children. In this story, the author leads us through a child's neighborhood in a world both realistic and fantastical at the same time. He uses repetition to tell the story in a circular fashion; Anda que andarás, anda que andarás…, perhaps remembering the stories his sister Celia used to tell as he played in the yard with his brothers and sisters. While their mudpies dried in the sun, she would begin, "There were thirteen robbers sitting on thirteen tall mountain tops smoking thirteen long pipes..."