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This paper arises from the critic readings of Angel Rama's La ciudad letrada; it suggests that, in Rama's essay, Mexico acts as "witness case", having "La señal de Jonás" (1980) as a previous articulating text. It also analyzes the tension of the lettered/intellectual figure, in other writings by Rama, expressed in two opposite narrations, "gesta del mestizo" and "gesta del letrado". Finally, it argues that certain omissions in the article aim at making discourse distant from the guidance of literary historiography and Latin American essay writing.