''El dinosaurio'' (The dinosaur) is a

flash fiction Flash fiction is a brief fictional narrative that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the For sale: baby shoes, never worn, six-word story; the 280-character story (also kn ...

written by the

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

-born Guatemalan writer

Augusto Monterroso Augusto Monterroso Bonilla (December 21, 1921 – February 8, 2003) was a Honduran writer who adopted Guatemalan nationality, known for the ironical and humorous style of his short stories. He is considered an important figure in the Latin Amer ...

, published as a part of the book ''Obras completas (y otros cuentos)'', in 1959. It is considered one of the shortest stories in Spanish, and its whole text is the following: Meaning: ''When he/she/it woke, the dinosaur was still there.'' It is a simple sentence that forms a flash story, probably the most famous of all those published by Monterroso throughout his career. It was considered the shortest

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

in the Spanish language until the publication of another three works during the 21st century: one in 2005, '' El emigrante'', by

Luis Felipe Lomelí Luis Felipe Gómez Lomelí (January 10, 1975) is a Mexican writer and poet. He is best known for his flash fiction work " El emigrante" (The Migrant – 2005) and for the collection ''Todos santos de California'' (All Saints of California – 2 ...

; other, in 2006, ''Luis XIV'', by Juan Pedro Aparicio, and one in 2015, ''Epitafio para un microrrelatista'', by Marcelo Gobbo.

Impact in Mexican popular culture

In the

history of Mexico The history of Mexico spans over three millennia, with the earliest evidence of hunter-gatherer settlement 13,000 years ago. Central and southern Mexico, known as Mesoamerica, saw the rise of complex civilizations that developed glyphic writing ...

, the

Institutional Revolutionary Party The Institutional Revolutionary Party (, , PRI) is a List of political parties in Mexico, political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 as the National Revolutionary Party (, PNR), then as the Party of the Mexican Revolution (, PRM) and fin ...

remained in power for more than seven decades. It was compared to a "Dinosaur" by commentators due to the length of its time in power; as such, the ''El dinosaurio'' poem was often used to mock them.

References

Bibliography

* Spanish short stories 1959 short stories {{1950s-story-stub