Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes was born in México City, on November 11, 1928. Son to a member of the Foreign Service, during his childhood and youth he traveled with his father as ambassador of Mexico, to the Latin American countries of Panama, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and the United States. He came back to Mexico and remained in the country until his initiation with the Diplomatic Staff in Geneva. He went to law school at the Universidad Autónoma de México, and started writing for magazines.

After his graduation, in 1955, he founds the Revista Mexicana de Literatura (Mexican Literature Review), with Emmanuel Carballo and Octavio Paz. Four years later, he quit the Diplomatic Service and visited Cuba, as the Cuban revolution triumphed and seized the country.

Among his works, the most important are: Los días enmascarados (The masked days, 1954), which is a collection of tales, which mix reality and fantasy; La región más transparente (The most transparent region, 1958), presents the characteristics of urban life in Mexico City; in 1959 he publishes Las buenas conciencias (The good consciences), the story of a member of the Mexican bourgeoisie, surrounded by a strong ambience of religious superficial facades opposite to actual social morals.

In 1962 Fuentes publishes La muerte de Artemio Cruz (the death of Artemio Cruz), in which argument is supported by death as lucid birth of existence, corruption, treason to ideals founded in the ambition for power and wealth; love, reason and life, and the framing of a reversible framing of time.

Through other titles he continued drawing a wide view of contemporary Mexican society: Aura (1962), a brief narration and one of his best texts, touching the historical and sinking into the fictional, it is a work where the vampire becomes a metaphysical force.

Other works are: Zona Sagrada (Sacred Zone, 1967), enquiries on the myth of Ulysses and its references; Cambio de Piel (Change of skin, 1967), where he goes back to the epic and draws a carnivalesque and irreverent weltanschauung; Terra Nostra (Our land, 1975), which is a colossal enterprise, a work intricate with language and history, one of the most daring texts written in Spanish, where he weaves diverse types of fiction and myths; La cabeza de la hidra (The head of the hydra, 1978), where he rehearses a mystery novel with a historical Mexican theme; Una familia lejana (A distant family, 1980), in which he roots fantasy and history, interrelates various continents, various levels of historicity (the prehispanic world) and literary traditions; and Gringo Viejo (Old Gringo, 1985), on American writer Ambrose Bierce.

In 1987 Fuentes receives the Cervantes Prize, an Hispano-American recognition to his work.

In 1994 Fuentes publishes the novel Diana o la cazadora solitaria, (Diana or the lonely hunter), a work of autobiographical character in which he reflects Mexico in the 60’s.

In 1995 Fuentes publishes in Spain the novel Nuevo tiempo mexicano (New Mexican time), by which he explores the transcendentally ethical and social character of this movement.

In 1997, Fuentes publishes his short stories’ book La frontera de cristal (The crystal frontier), containing nine interrelated stories, and in which many aspects of the U.S.-Mexico relationship are portrayed and analyzed.

Fuentes also publishes El Espejo enterrado, (The buried mirror) a work made up by essays based on a television series he made and the word of 25 personalities, largely about American history, in a continental sense, exploring the genesis and development of Latin America as well as some reflections on the United States’ role in America.

At the end of 1998 Fuentes published Los años con Laura Díaz (The years with Laura Díaz) and in 2000 he published an anthology of fragments of his whole narrative work by the name of Los cinco soles de México, memoria de un milenio.

Carlos Fuentes is a prominent exponent of Mexican imagery, fantasy, reality and myth, from which we, as writers, are bound to draw inspiration from, in the sense that our Mexican quality is vibrantly present in our literature through his, giving us a sound and strong perception of our own roots.