[Tex/LaTex] biblatex-mla sometimes \autocite[prenote][pg]{key} is not printing the author’s name

biblatexmla-style

Context

I am working with Emacs 23, Auctex, Texlive 2011,
biblatex-mla. My operative system is Linux Mint Lisa.

I am writing my dissertation. I use a dissertation.cls and a
master document. This is part of the preamble in the master
document:

\usepackage[portuguese, spanish, american]{babel}
\usepackage{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=mla]{biblatex}
\bibliography{thesis}

\newenvironment{mlaquote}
{\list{}{
 \leftmargin 1 in
 \itemindent 0in
 \topsep 0in
 \partopsep 0in
}\item\relax}
{\endlist}

Problem

Frequently I need to include this prenote: (qtd. in). Sometimes the following
command works just fine:

\autocite[Quijano qtd. in][ 23] {Caetano1986}

the result is: (Quijano qtd. in Caetano and Rilla 23).

But in this case:

\autocite[Quijano qtd. in][44-5]{Caetano1986}.

the result is: (Quijano qtd. in 44-5)

I wonder why the autor is missing in the second case.

I think that my preamble is working fine because I am able to
work with articles, books, incollections, thesis, chapters,
etc, without a problem. Everything looks fine in the PDF except
for some references with a prenote.

I was thinking that I had some compatibility issue between Auctex
and Biblatex and I try to fix it with this post:
Customising emacs to use biblatex-biber instead of bibtex
But at the end, I could not fix this issue.

Here is my bib entry:

@BOOK{Caetano1986, 
title = {El joven Quijano (1900-1933): Izquierda nacional y conciencia cr\'itica}, 
publisher = {Ediciones de la Banda Oriental}, 
year = {1986}, 
author = {Gerardo Caetano and {Jos\'e Pedro} Rilla}, 
location = {Montevideo}, 
owner = {alfredo}, 
shorttitle = {Joven}, 
timestamp = {2011.04.24} 
}

Best Answer

The absent author names are by design in biblatex-mla. This can get problematic if the recurrent citations are separated by a lot of text. To avoid omission of names entirely, you can redefine the cite:ibid bibliography macro. Here's an example.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=mla]{biblatex}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\bibliography{biblatex-examples}

\renewbibmacro*{cite:ibid}{%
  \usebibmacro{cite:reset}%
  \usebibmacro{cite:mla:noibid}}

\begin{document}
\autocite[e.g.][27--45]{companion}
\autocite[e.g.][27--45]{companion}
\autocite[e.g.][27--45]{bertram}
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Here is the document compiled with biblatex 1.0.

enter image description here

For reference here's (unedited) biblatex-mla output with biblatex 1.7 and hyperref:

enter image description here

Use of both biblatex 1.0 and hyperref appears to resolve spacing issues with postnotes, but you'll have to omit any extraneous whitespace in your pre- and postnotes. For example \autocite[Quijano qtd. in][ 23]{Caetano1986} should be changed to \autocite[Quijano qtd. in][23]{Caetano1986}.

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