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) 86 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
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
The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World. Program V, Unfinished Business {video 5} (1991) 3 copies
The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World. Program IV, The Price of Freedom {video 4} (1991) 3 copies
אאורה פלוס : שתי נובלות ושני סיפורים 3 copies
Obras completas. Tomo I 3 copies
Feliz año nuevo : última entrega del diario "El año que vivimos en peligro" incluido en el libro Nuevo tiempo mexicano (1995) 3 copies
Frida Kahlo 1907-2007 2 copies
Irrigation Engineering & Hydraulic Structures [Hardcover] [Jan 01, 2016] Carlos Chávez, Carlos Fuentes et al. (2016) 2 copies
The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World. Program III, The Age of Gold {video 3} (1991) 2 copies
The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World. Program II, Conflict of the Gods {video 2} (1991) 2 copies
Chile, raíz de mi palabra 1 copy
High noon in Latin America 1 copy
The Review of Conttemporary Fiction: Number VIII, #2 — Editor — 1 copy
Cuentos sobrenaturales 1 copy
DERİ DEĞİŞTİRMEK 1 copy
MACHADO DE LA MANCHA 1 copy
cristovão nonato 1 copy
A minoria majoritária 1 copy
On human rights : a speech 1 copy
Oba bregova 1 copy
The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World. Program I, The Virgin and the Bull {video 1} (1991) — Author — 1 copy
Nueva novela latinoamericana Homenaje a Carlos Fuentes (Cinco propuestas para la próxima novela) 1 copy
Obras reunidas 1 copy
Feliz año nuevo 1 copy
Palabras iniciales 1 copy
París. La revolución de mayo 1 copy
Gabo memorias da memoria 1 copy
Orlov presto 1 copy
El abrazo de las culturas 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 — 213 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 — 53 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 — 19 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
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
A French conductor, Gabriel, and a Mexican singer, Inez, have an intense sexual and emotional relationship that only seems to exist whilst they are working together on performances of Berlioz's La damnation de Faust, which they do in London in 1940, in Mexico City in 1949, and again in London in 1967. A primeval woman sings to her baby whilst her man paints animals on the wall of the cave, perhaps in Inez's dream, or in a reality that starts to cross over into the other reality of the opera. show more There's a fragile glass seal that seems to have been a love-token from Inez to Gabriel, but also seems to be an icon of the Mother-Goddess, who also appears as the woman's mother in the dream and as the elderly Gabriel's Austrian housekeeper. And there's a mysterious blond, bare-chested man who crosses over into the dream from a photo where he appears with Gabriel, but then turns up playing a bone flute in the pit at Covent Garden...
So there's a lot of - explicit or implicit - general stuff going on here about matriarchy/patriarchy, colonialism, the aftermath of the Mexican Civil War and World War II, power-relations in the arts and between men and women, symbols and archetypes, and so on. But there's also another thread to the book which is all about music and performance, where it's not always obvious whether the relationship between Gabriel and Inez is a metaphor for (or an ironic commentary on) the music they are making together, or vice-versa. Fuentes stresses how music can only be performed as it should be if the performer can do the impossible and combine dispassionate serenity with passionate engagement. He wants us to understand the transience of musical performance, too: Gabriel refuses to have his work recorded, so the performance only exists whilst it's being performed (like the sex?), whereas the Platonic ideal of the music as expressed in Berlioz's score always exists, but is never realised (like the love?).
And there's obviously a reason for bringing in not simply Faust, but Berlioz's Faust in particular. (If Gabriel were simply any old opera conductor, he'd be far more likely to be performing Gounod's Faust.) Presumably that means we have to take as read all the Thomas Mann stuff about mortgaging future salvation to obtain creativity, and the way the Goethe/Marlowe Faust story brings together ideas from the baroque, enlightenment and romantic eras, plus things specific to Berlioz, which I assume means the supremely confident way he harnessed the musical technology of the industrial age to produce sounds that tap into our most primitive emotions...
All very interesting to read, but definitely the sort of book that asks a lot of questions but doesn't answer many of them. show less
So there's a lot of - explicit or implicit - general stuff going on here about matriarchy/patriarchy, colonialism, the aftermath of the Mexican Civil War and World War II, power-relations in the arts and between men and women, symbols and archetypes, and so on. But there's also another thread to the book which is all about music and performance, where it's not always obvious whether the relationship between Gabriel and Inez is a metaphor for (or an ironic commentary on) the music they are making together, or vice-versa. Fuentes stresses how music can only be performed as it should be if the performer can do the impossible and combine dispassionate serenity with passionate engagement. He wants us to understand the transience of musical performance, too: Gabriel refuses to have his work recorded, so the performance only exists whilst it's being performed (like the sex?), whereas the Platonic ideal of the music as expressed in Berlioz's score always exists, but is never realised (like the love?).
And there's obviously a reason for bringing in not simply Faust, but Berlioz's Faust in particular. (If Gabriel were simply any old opera conductor, he'd be far more likely to be performing Gounod's Faust.) Presumably that means we have to take as read all the Thomas Mann stuff about mortgaging future salvation to obtain creativity, and the way the Goethe/Marlowe Faust story brings together ideas from the baroque, enlightenment and romantic eras, plus things specific to Berlioz, which I assume means the supremely confident way he harnessed the musical technology of the industrial age to produce sounds that tap into our most primitive emotions...
All very interesting to read, but definitely the sort of book that asks a lot of questions but doesn't answer many of them. show less
«Vi lo que es el poder: una mirada de tigre que te hace bajar los ojos y sentir miedo y vergüenza.»
Lamida por mansas olas nocturnas en una playa del Pacífico, la cabeza cortada de Josué Nadal cuenta, recuerda, divaga. Sabe que es la número mil en lo que va de año y que gobierna la delincuencia (traficante o corporativa) con tal cinismo que incluso se celebra el mal como si fuera el bien de la voluntad y la fortuna. En México no hay tragedia: todo se vuelve telenovela.
Josué aspiró a show more entender el mundo en tanto Jericó, su amigo entrañable, llegó a admirar a Caín. Ambas voluntades chocan tras recabar agravantes en la premeditación y alevosía de Asunta Jordán, mujer indómita. En cambio, Lucha Zapata representa el peligro de la generosidad y el amor. El vasto reparto de esta obra incluye Filopáter, el cura rebelde; el magnate Max Monroy; el abogado Antonio Sanginés, intermediario entre estado y empresa; Miguel Aparecido, encarcelado por propia voluntad, y por encima (o por debajo) la matriarca, la Antigua Concepción.
¿Por qué si hay cinco tigres en una jaula cuatro se alían para matar a uno? Esta novela iniciática, espesa como el corazón de las tinieblas, propone algunas respuestas. show less
Lamida por mansas olas nocturnas en una playa del Pacífico, la cabeza cortada de Josué Nadal cuenta, recuerda, divaga. Sabe que es la número mil en lo que va de año y que gobierna la delincuencia (traficante o corporativa) con tal cinismo que incluso se celebra el mal como si fuera el bien de la voluntad y la fortuna. En México no hay tragedia: todo se vuelve telenovela.
Josué aspiró a show more entender el mundo en tanto Jericó, su amigo entrañable, llegó a admirar a Caín. Ambas voluntades chocan tras recabar agravantes en la premeditación y alevosía de Asunta Jordán, mujer indómita. En cambio, Lucha Zapata representa el peligro de la generosidad y el amor. El vasto reparto de esta obra incluye Filopáter, el cura rebelde; el magnate Max Monroy; el abogado Antonio Sanginés, intermediario entre estado y empresa; Miguel Aparecido, encarcelado por propia voluntad, y por encima (o por debajo) la matriarca, la Antigua Concepción.
¿Por qué si hay cinco tigres en una jaula cuatro se alían para matar a uno? Esta novela iniciática, espesa como el corazón de las tinieblas, propone algunas respuestas. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 198
- Also by
- 44
- Members
- 15,043
- Popularity
- #1,525
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 245
- ISBNs
- 1,041
- Languages
- 28
- Favorited
- 26
