Carlos Fuentes (1928–2012)
Author of The Death of Artemio Cruz
About the Author
Carlos Fuentes was born in Panama on November 11, 1928. He studied law at the National University of Mexico and did graduate work at the Institute des Hautes Etudes in Switzerland. He entered Mexico's diplomatic service and wrote in his spare time. His first novel, Where the Air Is Clear, was show more published in 1958. His other works include The Death of Artemio Cruz, Destiny and Desire, and Vlad. The Old Gringo was later adapted as a film starring Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda in 1989. He won numerous awards including the Fuentes the Romulo Gallegos Prize in Venezuela for Terra Nostra, the National Order of Merit in France, the Cervantes Prize in 1987, and Spain's Prince of Asturias Award for literature in 1994. He also wrote essays, short stories, screenplays, and political nonfiction. In addition to writing, he taught at numerous universities, including Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, and Brown. He served as the ambassador of Mexico to France. He died on May 15, 2012 at the age of 83. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Carlos Fuentes
Americanos: Latino Life in the United States - La Vida Latina en los Estados Unidos (1999) 84 copies
Aquiles o el guerrillero y el asesino / Achilles or The Warrior and the Murderer (Spanish Edition) (2016) 24 copies
Valiente mundo nuevo : épica, utopía y mito en la novela hispanoamericana (Vida y Pensamiento de Mexico) (Spanish Edition) (1990) 19 copies
Cien años de soledad y un homenaje: Discursos de Gabriel García Márquez y Carlos Fuentes (2007) — Author — 16 copies
El mal del tiempo / Restlessness: Aura, Cumpleanos, Una Familia Lejana / Aura, Birthday and Distant Relations (Spanish Edition) (1994) 12 copies
A Very Mexican Christmas: The Greatest Mexican Holiday Stories of All Time (2022) — Contributor — 11 copies
Obras reunidas III. Imaginaciones mexicanas (Obras Reunidas / Complete Works) (Spanish Edition) (2007) 7 copies
Obras reunidas II. Capital mexicana. La región más transparente. Agua quemada (Obras Reunidas / Complete Works) (Spanish Edition) (2007) 6 copies
Carlos Fuentes : Premio de Literatura en Lengua Castellana "Miguel de Cervantes" 1987 (1988) 5 copies
Conferencias políticas. Educación; sociedad y democracia (Letras Mexicanas) (Spanish Edition) (2018) 5 copies
El Prisionero De Las Lomas/ the Prisoner of the Hills (Mexican Authors) (Spanish Edition) (2006) 4 copies, 1 review
Feliz año nuevo : última entrega del diario "El año que vivimos en peligro" incluido en el libro Nuevo tiempo mexicano (1995) 3 copies
Obras completas. Tomo I 3 copies
אאורה פלוס : שתי נובלות ושני סיפורים 3 copies
Frida Kahlo 1907-2007 2 copies
Święta strefa 2 copies
Irrigation Engineering & Hydraulic Structures [Hardcover] [Jan 01, 2016] Carlos Chávez, Carlos Fuentes et al. (2016) 2 copies
The Review of Conttemporary Fiction: Number VIII, #2 — Editor — 1 copy
Chile, raíz de mi palabra 1 copy
El mundo de José Luis Cuevas 1 copy
High noon in Latin America 1 copy
O Velho Gringo 1 copy
Cuentos sobrenaturales 1 copy
A cabeça de hidra 1 copy
A minoria majoritária 1 copy
משפחה רחוקה 1 copy
A MORTE DE ARTEMIO CRUZ 1 copy
EL GRINGO VIEJO 1 copy
En esto creo 2002 1 copy
FUE Cambio de piel 1 copy
cristovão nonato 1 copy
MACHADO DE LA MANCHA 1 copy
DERİ DEĞİŞTİRMEK 1 copy
Palabras iniciales 1 copy
Oba bregova 1 copy
Feliz año nuevo 1 copy
Obras reunidas 1 copy
Nueva novela latinoamericana Homenaje a Carlos Fuentes (Cinco propuestas para la próxima novela) 1 copy
El abrazo de las culturas 1 copy
París. La revolución de mayo 1 copy
On human rights : a speech 1 copy
Obras reunidas V. (Fabulaciones trasatlánticas. Cristóbal Nonato. Zona sagrada. El naranjo.) (2013) 1 copy
Orlov presto 1 copy
Pieśń ślepców 1 copy
Gabo memorias da memoria 1 copy
Associated Works
A World of Ideas : Conversations With Thoughtful Men and Women About American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future (1989) — Interviewee — 603 copies, 1 review
The Art of the Tale: An International Anthology of Short Stories (1986) — Contributor — 381 copies, 3 reviews
Other Voices, Other Vistas: Short Stories from Africa, China, India, Japan, and Latin America (1992) — Contributor — 212 copies, 2 reviews
A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes: Stories from Latin America (1991) — Contributor — 162 copies, 3 reviews
A Thousand Forests in One Acorn: An Anthology of Spanish-Language Fiction (2014) — Contributor — 51 copies
Introducción a la literatura hispanoamericana : de la conquista al siglo XX (1997) — Contributor — 23 copies
She Made Friends and Kept Them: An Anecdotal Memoir (1996) — Introduction, some editions — 18 copies
Het continent van de eenzaamheid reportages en beschouwingen over Latijns-Amerika (1992) — Contributor — 6 copies
Confesiones de escritores, escritores latinoamericanos : los reportajes de The Paris Review (1996) — Contributor — 5 copies
Maestros de la Literatura Universal: Latinoamerica — Contributor — 3 copies
Literatura Socialismo y Poder. 2 copies
Cuentos fantásticos y de ciencia ficción en América Latina — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Fuentes, Carlos
- Legal name
- Fuentes Macías, Carlos Manuel
- Birthdate
- 1928-11-11
- Date of death
- 2012-05-15
- Gender
- male
- Education
- National Autonomous University of Mexico
Institute of Advanced International Studies - Occupations
- writer
editor
critic
political analyst
diplomat - Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters ( [1985])
- Awards and honors
- Biblioteca Breve (1967)
Premio Miguel de Cervantes (1987)
Premio Príncipe de Asturias (1994)
Man Booker International Prize Finalist (2007)
American Academy of Arts and Letters (Foreign Honorary ∙ Literature ∙ 1985)
Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor (1999) (show all 10)
Americas Society Gold Medal (2008)
Xavier Villaurrutia Award (1976)
Rómulo Gallegos Award (1977)
Commandeur, l'Ordre National du Mérite (1997) - Relationships
- Fuentes Lemus, Carlos (son)
Lemus, Silvia (wife)
Macedo, Rita (ex-wife) - Short biography
- De schrijver Carlos Fuentes is in een ziekenhuis in Mexico-Stad overleden. De 83-jarige auteur gold als een van de belangrijkste literatoren in het Spaans taalgebied. Het bericht over zijn dood werd dinsdag via Twitter bevestigd door president Calderón, die Fuentes omschrijft als 'schrijver en universeel Mexicaan'.
Fuentes en generatiegenoten als Colombiaan Gabriel Garcia Márquez en Peruaan Mario Vargas Llosa vestigden de aandacht op de Latijns-Amerikaanse cultuur in een periode waarin het grootste deel van de regio werd bestuurd door dictators. In een interview met de Volkskrant zei Fuentes in 2006 dat een goed schrijver alles moet bekritiseren. 'Niet alleen zijn vijanden, maar ook zijn vrienden. Juist zijn vrienden!'
In 1987 werd Fuentes' werk bekroond met de Cervantes Prijs. Zijn laatste roman, De wil en het lot, verscheen in 2010 - Cause of death
- hemorrhage
- Nationality
- Mexico
- Birthplace
- Panama City, Panama
- Places of residence
- Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico
Paris, Île-de-France, France
London, Middlesex, England, UK - Place of death
- Angeles del Pedregal Hospital, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico
- Burial location
- Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, Île-de-France, France
Members
Discussions
Fun with Fuentes: Group Read of The Old Gringo in 75 Books Challenge for 2012 (July 2012)
Carlos Fuentes in Le Salon Littéraire du Peuple pour le Peuple (May 2012)
Reviews
One of the few novels of its length that should have been longer than it is. Inherently, it is far from a perfect work – the dealing of racial and gender politics is often maladroit, for example – but it's hard to fault the ambition behind it. The real issue with that ambition is that Fuentes seems to be rushing in the last two hundred pages or so to wrap everything together when, I think, it could have instead used a further dive into what he had already set up. He almost seems scared show more by what he has constructed, rushing to rearrange it in more familiar garb. This is presumably what Coover was picking up on when they called it "a magnificent failure."
However, this aspect of what fails might well be what makes it so compelling. It is a massive mythohistoric confabulation on what the real inheritance of Hispanic culture (in the broadest sense) entails. Could such an undertaking ever really succeed? It's interesting the ways certain parts run up against the work Juan Goytisolo was writing just before. But we have something else entirely here, a truly deep investigation of what the cultural inheritance in which the book operates entails: not just a critique, but an immanent critique felt deep in the author's bones.
So why 4.5 stars? The work itself, despite the flaws, is indeed incredibly admirable. And I really can't think of another work like it. At the end of the day, the best works of literature might be failures just like this one: books that show us the very boundaries it is not quite ready to leap beyond.
In sum, it is definitely still worth a read and, for me, the version we have is certainly an amazing accomplishment. But at the end I do wonder what could have been if there were a few hundred page – or more! – in addition. show less
However, this aspect of what fails might well be what makes it so compelling. It is a massive mythohistoric confabulation on what the real inheritance of Hispanic culture (in the broadest sense) entails. Could such an undertaking ever really succeed? It's interesting the ways certain parts run up against the work Juan Goytisolo was writing just before. But we have something else entirely here, a truly deep investigation of what the cultural inheritance in which the book operates entails: not just a critique, but an immanent critique felt deep in the author's bones.
So why 4.5 stars? The work itself, despite the flaws, is indeed incredibly admirable. And I really can't think of another work like it. At the end of the day, the best works of literature might be failures just like this one: books that show us the very boundaries it is not quite ready to leap beyond.
In sum, it is definitely still worth a read and, for me, the version we have is certainly an amazing accomplishment. But at the end I do wonder what could have been if there were a few hundred page – or more! – in addition. show less
Just for starters, imagine a man who conjures a different woman to devour for each course of his meal, a racist border patrol officer, a man whose lover is his daughter-in-law, and a woman thwarted in her determination to prove her theory that Mexicans are lazy. Now, add vivid and compelling prose. Now add the discomfort of absorbing a lambasting of the ethics, hypocrisy, power, and destructiveness of your home nation. This is a must read novel, published in 1995 and very relevant today. show more Guaranteed to make you squirm, to make you think, and to make you feel. Absolutely a remarkable literary work! show less
Cruzamos el río a caballo.
The 71-year-old Artemio Cruz is on his deathbed: we look back at his life through a series of flashbacks, in some kind of arbitrary non-chronological order (and ending with the moment of his birth), each preceded by a stream-of-consciousness reflection by the old man in the sick-room, vaguely aware of what is going on around him but unable to communicate with his family and staff.
Cruz started as a minor player in the Mexican Revolution, a junior army officer from show more the back of beyond. By the end of his life, he has risen by a mixture of betrayal, corruption and a talent for survival to control a business empire, several key newspapers, and most of the Mexican government. Fuentes uses his career as a foundation for reflecting on the nature of revolutions in general and the Mexican one in particular, the way they are started by people with real wrongs to right on behalf of their communities, but somehow always end up being taken over by people with clear personal ambition and the will to power. He points out what he sees as weaknesses in the structure of postcolonial Mexican society that make it particularly susceptible to being exploited by people like Cruz.
But this is also an extended meditation on mortality, the way our lives seem to centre on outliving other people, but death always turns up sooner or later (Fuentes was only in his forties when he wrote this!). And it's a love-song to Mexico's landscape, culture, ethnic diversity and languages — at the very centre of the text is a long prose-poem celebrating the "Mexican verb" chingar (also the subject of a famous essay by Octavio Paz).
Like most "new novels" of the period, it's not an easy read, and it's often deliberately confusing, mixing very precisely timed and dated sections with passages where we are unsure where or when we are or who is talking. But there's a lot of very exciting, captivating language there, and it's obviously a book that will repay reading two or three times. show less
The 71-year-old Artemio Cruz is on his deathbed: we look back at his life through a series of flashbacks, in some kind of arbitrary non-chronological order (and ending with the moment of his birth), each preceded by a stream-of-consciousness reflection by the old man in the sick-room, vaguely aware of what is going on around him but unable to communicate with his family and staff.
Cruz started as a minor player in the Mexican Revolution, a junior army officer from show more the back of beyond. By the end of his life, he has risen by a mixture of betrayal, corruption and a talent for survival to control a business empire, several key newspapers, and most of the Mexican government. Fuentes uses his career as a foundation for reflecting on the nature of revolutions in general and the Mexican one in particular, the way they are started by people with real wrongs to right on behalf of their communities, but somehow always end up being taken over by people with clear personal ambition and the will to power. He points out what he sees as weaknesses in the structure of postcolonial Mexican society that make it particularly susceptible to being exploited by people like Cruz.
But this is also an extended meditation on mortality, the way our lives seem to centre on outliving other people, but death always turns up sooner or later (Fuentes was only in his forties when he wrote this!). And it's a love-song to Mexico's landscape, culture, ethnic diversity and languages — at the very centre of the text is a long prose-poem celebrating the "Mexican verb" chingar (also the subject of a famous essay by Octavio Paz).
Like most "new novels" of the period, it's not an easy read, and it's often deliberately confusing, mixing very precisely timed and dated sections with passages where we are unsure where or when we are or who is talking. But there's a lot of very exciting, captivating language there, and it's obviously a book that will repay reading two or three times. show less
When I heard that Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012), the famous Mexican writer, had died I immediately decided it was time for me to investigate his oeuvre. I selected his 1962 novella Aura, translated by Lysander Kemp; having previously read his short story ‘The Doll Queen’ in an anthology, I now believe he had not only great talent as a writer, but also (rather more surprisingly) a stylish way with horror fiction.
As a word of advice, my own experience of reading the book is that it demands show more the reader to be at ease. I was midway through the second chapter when I realised I wasn’t enjoying the story because I was reading it much too fast. I put it aside, returning later to start at the beginning and give it my undivided attention. Aura is short, so make it last. Take your time and savour it.
The cast consists of four characters: Felipe Montero, a young historian; long deceased General Llorente, whose memoirs Felipe is meant to put in order; Consuelo Llorente, the decrepit still-living wife; and Aura, her bewitching green-eyed niece. The novella begins with a poetic quote from French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874): "Man hunts and struggles. Woman intrigues and dreams; she is the mother of fantasy, the mother of the gods. She has second sight, the wings that enable her to fly to the infinite of desire and the imagination… The gods are like men: they are born and they die on a woman’s breast…" Fuentes undoubtedly used this quote to draw attention to one of the subtexts of the story. Felipe and the General are preoccupied with history, consistency and rationality while the women form expressions of timelessness and the uncanny. I do not feel free to discuss the plot in depth so will try to leave it vague and move on to the style.
Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice about Aura is that it’s written in second person present-tense, a notoriously difficult style to do well. Why did Fuentes choose it? It obviously wasn’t to 'put yourself in this man’s boots,' since Felipe is too distinct an entity for that to work. It seems rather to mimic the style of dream. "You eat in silence. You drink that thick wine, occasionally shifting your glance so that Aura won’t catch you in the hypnotized stare that you can’t control. You’d like to fix the girl’s features in your mind. Every time you look away you forget them again, and an irresistible urge forces you to look at her once more." In the wavering details, in the manner of Felipe’s behaviour, and in the blatant irrationality of the setting, Aura mimics a dreamscape perfectly without once devolving into unreadable surrealism. For that alone, it should be highly commended.
And as such, the cover art manages to be completely misleading and all the more accurate for that. Aura is described in colours and ages, her features never pinned down, so to have an actual woman on the cover would be to destroy the effect. Nor does a cat belong there. The suffering of felines is a peripheral theme of horror that has trickled down from Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ to something as obscure as the Joan Aiken story ‘Listening’ and Aura joins their ranks, though the cats are so incidental to the plot that I cannot begin to grasp their significance. That’s possibly the point….
The book tends to induce a sense of unease. I like my horror oblique so the balance here is almost perfect and if you let it, it will give you the creeps. It is however in the self-conscious literary department, so if you’re looking for thrills and chills upfront, look elsewhere. Here there’s just a house lost in the middle of a city with a garden that isn’t accessible and a servant that’s never seen. The set-up - Felipe inveigled to stay in this rat-infested mausoleum and the obsession of Consuelo Llorente with reclaiming her vanished youth – puts one in mind of Sunset Boulevard, while Consuelo’s manner of living seems a deliberate evocation of Miss Havisham. I can’t discuss most any of this in detail, save the presence of religious imagery - from Consuelo’s room lit with votive candles to the General, grieving in his memoirs: “Consuelo, my poor Consuelo! Even the devil was an angel once,” to the comparison between Aura’s body during sex with that of Christ’s on the cross. Mixing the sacred and the profane can be used as a shock tactic or as an above-board interpretation of a spiritual experience. Aura manages to do both.
The liberal use of French in the text leads me to the belief that Carlos Fuentes was a closet Francophile, but in terms of readability that is the only challenge it offers. Otherwise, Fuentes’ writing has a simple clarity that serves to highlight the restrained lushness of the prose and it reads beautifully. "The woman, you repeat as she comes close, the woman, not the girl of yesterday: the girl of yesterday – you touch Aura’s fingers, her waist – couldn’t have been more than twenty; the woman of today – you caress her loose black hair, her pallid cheeks – seems to be forty. Between yesterday and today, something about her green eyes has turned hard; the red of her lips has strayed beyond their former outlines, as if she wanted to fix them in a happy grimace, a troubled smile; as if, like the plant in the patio, her smile combined the taste of honey and the taste of gall." It is this element of beauty that gives the story its impact. There is an allure in what is depicted and at the same time a repulsion – and that, to my mind, is the essence of the macabre.
It’s a bit early for me to make any sweeping pronouncements but from what I’ve read I feel confident in saying this: Carlos Fuentes was a great writer and an artist. Recommended.
http://pseudointellectualreviews.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/aura-carlos-fuentes/ show less
As a word of advice, my own experience of reading the book is that it demands show more the reader to be at ease. I was midway through the second chapter when I realised I wasn’t enjoying the story because I was reading it much too fast. I put it aside, returning later to start at the beginning and give it my undivided attention. Aura is short, so make it last. Take your time and savour it.
The cast consists of four characters: Felipe Montero, a young historian; long deceased General Llorente, whose memoirs Felipe is meant to put in order; Consuelo Llorente, the decrepit still-living wife; and Aura, her bewitching green-eyed niece. The novella begins with a poetic quote from French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874): "Man hunts and struggles. Woman intrigues and dreams; she is the mother of fantasy, the mother of the gods. She has second sight, the wings that enable her to fly to the infinite of desire and the imagination… The gods are like men: they are born and they die on a woman’s breast…" Fuentes undoubtedly used this quote to draw attention to one of the subtexts of the story. Felipe and the General are preoccupied with history, consistency and rationality while the women form expressions of timelessness and the uncanny. I do not feel free to discuss the plot in depth so will try to leave it vague and move on to the style.
Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice about Aura is that it’s written in second person present-tense, a notoriously difficult style to do well. Why did Fuentes choose it? It obviously wasn’t to 'put yourself in this man’s boots,' since Felipe is too distinct an entity for that to work. It seems rather to mimic the style of dream. "You eat in silence. You drink that thick wine, occasionally shifting your glance so that Aura won’t catch you in the hypnotized stare that you can’t control. You’d like to fix the girl’s features in your mind. Every time you look away you forget them again, and an irresistible urge forces you to look at her once more." In the wavering details, in the manner of Felipe’s behaviour, and in the blatant irrationality of the setting, Aura mimics a dreamscape perfectly without once devolving into unreadable surrealism. For that alone, it should be highly commended.
And as such, the cover art manages to be completely misleading and all the more accurate for that. Aura is described in colours and ages, her features never pinned down, so to have an actual woman on the cover would be to destroy the effect. Nor does a cat belong there. The suffering of felines is a peripheral theme of horror that has trickled down from Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ to something as obscure as the Joan Aiken story ‘Listening’ and Aura joins their ranks, though the cats are so incidental to the plot that I cannot begin to grasp their significance. That’s possibly the point….
The book tends to induce a sense of unease. I like my horror oblique so the balance here is almost perfect and if you let it, it will give you the creeps. It is however in the self-conscious literary department, so if you’re looking for thrills and chills upfront, look elsewhere. Here there’s just a house lost in the middle of a city with a garden that isn’t accessible and a servant that’s never seen. The set-up - Felipe inveigled to stay in this rat-infested mausoleum and the obsession of Consuelo Llorente with reclaiming her vanished youth – puts one in mind of Sunset Boulevard, while Consuelo’s manner of living seems a deliberate evocation of Miss Havisham. I can’t discuss most any of this in detail, save the presence of religious imagery - from Consuelo’s room lit with votive candles to the General, grieving in his memoirs: “Consuelo, my poor Consuelo! Even the devil was an angel once,” to the comparison between Aura’s body during sex with that of Christ’s on the cross. Mixing the sacred and the profane can be used as a shock tactic or as an above-board interpretation of a spiritual experience. Aura manages to do both.
The liberal use of French in the text leads me to the belief that Carlos Fuentes was a closet Francophile, but in terms of readability that is the only challenge it offers. Otherwise, Fuentes’ writing has a simple clarity that serves to highlight the restrained lushness of the prose and it reads beautifully. "The woman, you repeat as she comes close, the woman, not the girl of yesterday: the girl of yesterday – you touch Aura’s fingers, her waist – couldn’t have been more than twenty; the woman of today – you caress her loose black hair, her pallid cheeks – seems to be forty. Between yesterday and today, something about her green eyes has turned hard; the red of her lips has strayed beyond their former outlines, as if she wanted to fix them in a happy grimace, a troubled smile; as if, like the plant in the patio, her smile combined the taste of honey and the taste of gall." It is this element of beauty that gives the story its impact. There is an allure in what is depicted and at the same time a repulsion – and that, to my mind, is the essence of the macabre.
It’s a bit early for me to make any sweeping pronouncements but from what I’ve read I feel confident in saying this: Carlos Fuentes was a great writer and an artist. Recommended.
http://pseudointellectualreviews.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/aura-carlos-fuentes/ show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 228
- Also by
- 44
- Members
- 14,961
- Popularity
- #1,531
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 245
- ISBNs
- 1,041
- Languages
- 28
- Favorited
- 26
