The essays and reports of Egon Erwin Kisch published in Mexico City in 1945 by El Libro Libre entitled Entdeckungen in Mexiko were his second book by this publisher; in 1942 he had already released Marktplatz der Sensationen (1942). The reports collected in his second book had been published in exile magazines since the early 1940s, especially in the magazine Freies Deutschland. They gave German readers an insight into the Latin American country. Since the beginning of his exile in Mexico in 1939 the author had undertaken numerous trips across the country and reported on how old colonial and modern aspects interrelated here. He described his impressions in an entertaining way. He pitched his prose at his readers' European horizon of expectation, covering, for example, the history of the people, the great land reform, the restructuring of health care, and particularly the natural history of Mexico. He provided information on the history of the volcanoes and the cactus types. He wrote informatively about the production of major agricultural products such as maize, cotton and the alcoholic juice "pulque" obtained from the agave plant. Kisch adorned his texts with invented stories. In Berlin the Czech-German journalist and writer, who was forced to flee the Nazis in 1933, was known as the "roving reporter" because he always appeared wherever there was something new and interesting to report.