What surprised the German writers Bodo Uhse, Egon Erwin Kisch or Anna Seghers (who had emigrated to Mexico in 1940) about the country's landscape was its otherness. Everything was subject to constant change, each volcanic eruption could alter the profile again. The plants were enormous, even compared with those in southern Spain that Uhse had seen, and were striking with their bright colours and tropical flowers. In around 1943 Uhse moved with his family from Mexico City into a house with a garden in Cuernavaca which afforded him the seclusion he needed to write.

In the Freies Deutschland exile magazine, Bodo Uhse, who was acquainted with many Mexican artists, published above all stories about his host country, focusing on social subjects in Mexico. These short stories included Der Bruder des Gavillans (1943), Reise in einem blauen Schwan (1944) and Der Türmer (1945). Writing these required knowledge of the language and the lives of farm workers and ordinary people. His master narrative Sonntagsträumerei in der Alameda described the conflicts that occurred in 1947 in Mexico City surrounding the eponymous fresco of the painter Diego Rivera. In 1957 he published an anthology entitled Mexikanische Erzählungen. The poem, which he wrote in Mexico, was never published.