Carlos Fuentes

“I’m not only bellicose armour, I’m also a head bearing peace.”

Achilles or the Warrior and the Murderer is the unpublished novel which Carlos Fuentes was working on when he died, and is a personal, fascinating and enlightening tale about a controversial episode in Colombia’s contemporary history. Based on the life of Carlos Pizarro, one of the leaders of the M-19 guerrilla movement, the novelist gives shape to a charismatic character, full of light and darkness. An Achilles who, like a true Homeric hero, is compelled to act and finally confront a fate that had been patiently waiting for him.

Apart from the known facts, the inevitable drug traffickers, the guerrilla fighters who must keep shooting in order to negotiate peace, the lack of a national project, and an irrepressible willingness to fight, Carlos Fuentes creates for readers of this posthumous novel a character who is as much an epic figure as he is a complex, vulnerable individual full of love and hope.

“A novel that, despite being based on real events and a contemporary, historical character like Carlos Pizarro, stands out because of its rich use of language and narrative pace and because it is also a cruel, stark metaphor for Colombian society in recent years.” Diego Gándara, La Razón

“For Fuentes a novel was a genre which could recreate history and not only offer credible lessons, but also leaps of imagination.” Julio Ortega

“Carlos Fuentes didn’t want to submit this manuscript to his publishers until the oldest armed conflict of Latin America had been resolved. The publication of Achilles coincides with what seems to be the final negotiations between the Colombian government and the guerrilla: the moment of truth, the end of unfinished business, the beginning of peace. This is the best moment to read Carlos Fuentes’s posthumous novel.” Silvia Lemus

“Fuentes must have asked himself whether he was entitled, as a Mexican, to write about Colombia, and to sing of the wrath of a Colombian Achilles. It’s an interesting question, coming from someone who had already explored the territory of Hispanic culture, the North American frontier, and life inside the womb. Fuentes’s works have left my generation this legacy: the Latin American novelist’s undeniable right to take on the entire world in their fiction; or better still, their obligation to disrespect borders” Juan Gabriel Vasquez

It is dawn and from their respective balconies in the Metropol Hotel two characters, Frederich Nietzsche and a peculiar interlocutor exchange views on power, love, justice and loyalty. It could be 2014 or 2016, and the country is suffering the havoc of a revolution which has overthrown the ‘perfect dictatorship’. Leonard and Frederich contemplate the mob the passing by and know that it is in an endless spiral of violence and think that maybe the horror will never end.

There is a vampire in Mexico City. He needs your blood. He wants your life. He’s after those who you love. And he will take much more than that.

Isn’t Mexico City, with its population of 10 million people, and a police force that isn’t perturbed by a few missing persons, the ideal home for a modern-day vampire?

In the last novel he wrote before he died, Carlos Fuentes revisits the character whose mythic cruelty inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

An old European aristocrat, Count Vlad Radu, settles down in Mexico City with his daughter in a mansion that seems more like a monastery. After coping with centuries of war and lack of human blood in Europe, he decides to move to the other side of the Atlantic and reestablish his empire. Although, he will need to hire the services of Yves Navarro, a lawyer, and his wife Asuncion, a detective from a well-off family who bears a mysterious resemblance to a woman in an old photograph…

“If you like vampires and your blood boils when you see what these horrific creatures have been reduced to nowadays, this short novel will restore your faith in the genre.” Soho

“Vlad is a short novel which you begin reading at 9 in the evening, you finish by 10 but are still blown away by at 8 in the morning.” Javier Velasco

“Breaking the cliché of the good, handsome, romantic vampire, Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes gives life to Vlad, a cruel, brutal, old-style vampire with the darkest of intentions in Mexico City.” El Economista

"A master piece of Spanish fantasy literature and one of the most disturbing vampire novels I have ever read." Guillermo del Toro

A powerful businessman decides to embark on his own fight against drug trafficking and the Narcos, to beat them at their own game, becoming more criminal than they are.

Licked by languid nocturnal waves on a beach in the Pacific, the severed head of Josué Nadal tells, remembers and rambles. He knows he is the thousandth one in the year so far, and that criminality (trafficked or corporative) rules the world so cynically that even evil is celebrated as if it represented good will and good fortune. Tragedy does not exist in Mexico; everything becomes a soap opera.

Here is a true literary event–the long-awaited new novel by Carlos Fuentes, one of the world’s great writers. By turns a tragedy and a farce, an acidic black comedy and an indictment of modern politics, The Eagle’s Throne is a seriously entertaining and perceptive story of international intrigue, sexual deception, naked ambition, and treacherous betrayal. 

In the near future, at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Mexico’s idealistic president has dared to vote against the U.S. occupation of Colombia and Washington’s refusal to pay OPEC prices for oil. Retaliation is swift. Concocting a “glitch” in a Florida satellite, America’s president cuts Mexico’s communications systems–no phones, faxes, or e-mails–and plunges the country into an administrative nightmare of colossal proportions. Now, despite the motto that “a Mexican politician never puts anything in writing,” people have no choice but to communicate through letters, which Fuentes crafts with a keen understanding of man’s motives and desires. As the blizzard of activity grows more and more complex, political adversaries come out to prey. The ineffectual president, his scheming cabinet secretary, a thuggish and ruthless police chief, and an unscrupulous, sensual kingmaker are just a few of the fascinating characters maneuvering and jockeying for position to achieve the power they all so desperately crave.

Two stories, two couples, two timelines and two passions. One of these is embodied by Gabriel Atlan-Ferrara, the conductor of an orchestra, and Inez Prada, a sublime opera singer. The other goes back to the first encounter between man and woman: their passions defy all boundaries and become part of a story that begins in prehistoric times and spirals infinitely into the future.

Novel of novels by Carlos Fuentes and an exciting journey through the millennium of a nation brimming with life. Carlos Fuentes guides us along that ill-defined yet urgent path that leads us from the ‘the enigma of dawn to the riddle of twilight’.

Through the intimate life and passions of a woman, this novel narrates a family saga that is intertwined with the cultural and political history of a turbulent country where everything seems to happen simultaneously. The clamour of the tumult that wants to change the destiny of Mexico converges with the colourful path of two of the world’s greatest painters: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

What passions or ideals move a human being and propel him to his own death? This appears to be the question Carlos Fuentes asks himself as he reflects on the life and death of the actor Diana Soren: as lonely as she was beautiful, as strong as she was vulnerable.

Baltasar Bustos is a law student employed by the imperial Supreme Court of Buenos Aires, he goes into the bedroom of the president of the Court and swaps the latter’s new-born baby for a black baby, the child of a sick prostitute. For his part, the legitimate child is given to a black enslaved woman. This novel has all the ingredients of a classic romance novel: impossible romance, unstoppable passion, obsessive, desperate characters who live at the forefront of the fight for the freedom and independence of their nation.

The ghosts of the past and present coexist in the five novels which make up this work. The pain of memories and of a love which has no future make up the world of the mysterious characters of Constance, the unhappy one, the prisoner of the hills, long live my fame and reasonable people.

Acid rain falls on Makesicko City, the most populated, most contaminated city in the world. The mechanisms ensuring political control are implacable and festivities and competitions keep the masses amused, one of them being a prize for the couple whose baby is born in the first minute of the 12 of October. In his mother’s womb, where he hesitates and listens to the world rumbling outside, Cristóbal wonders: Is being born worth it?

One of Carlos Fuentes's greatest works, The Old Gringo tells the story of Ambrose Bierce, the American writer, soldier, and journalist, and of his last mysterious days in Mexico living among Pancho Villa's soldiers, particularly his encounter with General Tomas Arroyo. In the end, the incompatibility of the two countries (or, paradoxically, their intimacy) claims both men, in a novel that is, most of all, about the tragic history of two cultures in conflict.

In the interplay of inheritance and destiny, a distant family is propagated: desire is greedy, the offspring motley. South America in a nutshell, this novel is inscribed with the rhythm of a conversation and a poem and is much more than an unforgettable chronicle of the death of a family.

A crime novel which portrays Mexico during the oil boom, but is also a reflection on the illusory nature of freedom. A bureaucrat is thrown into an enigmatic whirlwind of suspense and international espionage, where he is stripped of his identity and discovers a sinister array of interests in conflict.

Philip II, the ‘Defender of the Faith’, is the most powerful monarch in the world. His reign terrorizes while a new world is being born. Philip is tired and ill; the shame from his excesses leads him to hide away in the palace he ordered to be built as his last abode: the Escorial. All of a sudden, three mysterious young men appear with a red cross on their backs; one of them speaks of a new world, an Eden with beautiful cities, volcanos and pyramids, where cruelty, pain and death live among supernatural beings like the lady of butterflies. The Defender of the Faith can’t rest just yet: he is duty-bound to crucify these infidels… Will he finally be able to govern a fair and just world?

"Terra Nostra is the spreading out of the novel, the exploration of its possibilities, the voyage to the edge of what only a novelist can see and say." Milan Kundera

A room which is also a house, a city, a world. In there, an old man, a woman and a child form a Trinity in the depths of an instant. Time is the true narrative space in this novel; it is a story that never was, is, or will never be, as it is embodied in exchangeable identities, because continuity is resurrection.

Four characters embark on a road trip from Mexico to Veracruz and are forced to spend a night in Cholula, where they will visit a pyramid which seems to hold secrets, that will bring back memories for each of them.  Franz collaborated with the Nazis by building prisons and crematoriums. Javier finds consolation from his mundane marriage with Elizabeth in the arms of his young student Isabel. All of a sudden, the pyramid collapses and two of them are trapped inside…

This is the story of the relationship between mother and son. She is Claudia Nervo, a leading Mexican film star, ‘a dark panther, both tender and dangerous. However, he is the central character in this book, his book. We experience it through his own memories: a calm childhood, being kidnapped by his mother and a sudden change, the gift of keys to his own apartment on the birthday he became an adult. 

Felipe Montero is employed in the house of an aged widow to edit her deceased husband's memoirs. There Felipe meets her beautiful green-eyed niece, Aura. His passion for Aura and his gradual discovery of the true relationship between the young woman and her aunt propel the story to its extraordinary conclusion.

Hailed as a masterpiece since its publication in 1962, The Death of Artemio Cruz is Carlos Fuentes's haunting voyage into the soul of modern Mexico. 
As in all his fiction, but perhaps most powerfully in this book, Fuentes is a passionate guide to the ironies of Mexican history, the burden of its past, and the anguish of its present.

The Good Conscience is Carlos Fuentes's second novel. The scene is Guanajuato, a provincial capital in Central Mexico, once one of the world's richest mining centers. The Ceballos family has been reinstated to power, and adolescent Jaime Ceballos, its only heir, is torn between the practical reality of his family's life and the idealism of his youth and his Catholic education. His father is a good man but weak; his uncle is powerful, yet his actions are inconsistent with his professed beliefs. Jaime's struggle to emerge as a man with a "good conscience" forms the theme of the book: can a rebel correct the evils of an established system and at the same time retain the integrity of his principles?

“In a captivating prose and a narrative filled with convincing descriptions of a variety of locations and psychological states, this novel, published in 1959, is a startling depiction of a society rent by hypocrisy.” La Vanguardia

A commemorative edition, prepared by the author himself, of the ‘great urban novel’ of Mexican literature.

An inventory of Mexican society, it is also a kind of avant-garde version of the human comedy, that charts in intriguing ways the meshing of different worlds and underworlds intertwine. Mexico City emerges in all its modern complexity, and the narrative   traces the social relations woven by these worlds.

Considered the cornerstone of the Latin-American boom, Where The Air Is Clear was a ground-breaking work of literature from the start. Through the use of different literary techniques and new typographies, it subverted traditional narratives and opened new paths for literary creativity. It is considered to be the origin of a new kind of narrative within the history of Mexican literature.

Carolina Grau, no es novela ni libro de cuentos, sino un género mestizo que obtiene la unidad a través de la reaparición de esa mujer atractiva que es Carolina Grau. El libro ha sido armado para que todos los caminos conduzcan a un mismo relato principal, a manera de casa de los espejos que invita a nunca salir de él.

Incluye cuentos originalmente publicados en distintos volúmenes.

Incluye cuentos originalmente publicados en distintos volúmenes.

Un hombre es humillado por su patrón; su hijo quisiera humillarlo más. El hijo del Presidente se rebela contra su padre, pero depende de su protección. Una mujer, por amor, sufre el sadismo de su marido. Un comandante debe escoger cuál de sus dos hijos morirá. Un cura esconde a su hija en una aldea. Todas las familias felices es la polifonía narrativa de los ramales conflictivos del México contemporáneo y, por extensión, del mundo.

Fantasmas, brujas, ángeles, vampiros… A pesar de todas las apariencias de modernidad, los seres que acostumbramos llamar imaginarios no mueren por completo, como si nuestros temores más grandes y nuestros más ardorosos deseos sólo entrasen en receso, guardados en un sótano junto a cachivaches inservibles, hasta que un accidente, una casualidad o fuerzas oscuras los convocan.

From Mexico’s preeminent man of letters, “a Balzacian novel in nine masterly stories” (Vanity Fair) that explores the “uneven and painful meshing of two North american cultures” (Washington Post Book World). A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year.

The characters in these stories risk their lives and suffer injustice without realizing their ambitions: a Portuguese sailor throws a bottle into the sea, a Spanish soldier lives amongst indigenous people and is an interpreter for the Spanish Cortés, a noble Greek who sets siege to Numancia, a son of Cortés who is implicated in a conspiracy against the king and a Hollywood actor who visits a brothel in Acapulco. The author shows the poverty caused by the colonization of the Americas, the horrors of wars in Europe and the exotic features of the contemporary world through the emblematic figure of the orange tree, a symbol of miscegenation.

La Ciudad de México es el escenario y el protagonista velado de los cuatro relatos. Sus personajes transitan por espacios y momentos trágicos y festivos, como ellos mismos: un general nostálgico; una anciana olvidada; un solterón acaudalado, y un lumpen que, mientras traba un combate con las palabras, termina como guardaespaldas de quien le ha causado tanto dolor…

Siete cuentos donde los personajes encuentran situaciones insólitas que incluyen incesto, encuentros sobrenaturales, amores secretos e insospechados y adulterio en familia. Incluye obras clásicas que incluso han sido llevadas al cine, como Muñeca reina y Una alma pura.

El libro consta de seis relatos de corte fantástico.

Reestructuración de la obra Todos los gatos son pardos, con nuevos personajes y situaciones.    

Título de un supuesto tango, la obra convoca en un cine abandonado de la ciudad de Venice, en California, a dos actrices que sueñan que son dos estrellas: María Félix y Dolores del Río.

Reúne sus dos anteriores obras teatrales, Todos los gatos son pardos y El tuerto es rey.

Donata y su criado, el Duque, habitan una casa que parece colapsarse. Ambos son ciegos, pero cada uno cree que sólo él lo está y que el otro ve; cada uno cree que el otro es su guardián, su lazarillo, su propiedad.

La idea de la obra surgió de la lectura de Lacan y de una sugerencia de Arthur Miller, quien se sentía fascinado por la historia de la conquista de México, por el encuentro dramático entre un hombre que lo tenía todo, Moctezuma, y otro que nada tenía, Cortés. El poder y la palabra. Moctezuma o el poder de la fatalidad; Cortés o el poder de la voluntad. Entre las dos orillas del poder, un puente: la lengua, Marina, que con las palabras convierte la historia de ambos poderes en destino: el conocimiento del que es imposible sustraerse.

A viva voz es asistir al encuentro cercano e íntimo con la palabra de uno de los pensadores más inquietos y vitales de todos los tiempos. Además del reconocimiento que recibió por su obra escrita, Carlos Fuentes siempre fue apreciado como uno de los grandes oradores, como un conferenciante crítico, agudo y generoso al momento de compartir sus ideas y puntos de vista. Hasta el final de su vida, subía al podio con un salto atlético, seducía a su público con la brillantez de su síntesis, con la calidez y la vitalidad de su tono.

A viva voz recopila una serie de conferencias culturales, divididas en tres partes, que hablan intensamente de su relación con la literatura nacional y universal, con su propia obra, con sus amigos y con quienes consideró sus maestros. «Maestros» está conformada por textos que desvelan la grandeza de Balzac, Faulkner y Cervantes, y la influencia que tuvieron en su obra. «Amigos» integra textos sobre la amistad y lo que representaba para él: "Lo que no tenemos, lo encontramos en el amigo. Creo en este obsequio y lo cultivo desde la infancia." Estas conferencias hablan de Luis Buñuel, Alfonso Reyes, Julio Cortázar, Fernando Benítez y Octavio Paz. Finalmente, en «Vocación» , Fuentes vuelve su mirada hacia la historia de sus propias obras literarias y a los principios detrás de su construcción, las coloca al lado de los acontecimientos relevantes de su época y cuenta detalles que interesarán vivamente a los amantes de la literatura.

Conferencias políticas recopila algunos de los ensayos dispersos de Carlos Fuentes que datan de 1992 a 2012 y en los que el autor esboza la evolución política y social de México a través de los años al mismo tiempo que realiza un estudio de su sociedad. 

Por medio de una comparación del pasado con el presente, Fuentes aborda temas como el progreso, la educación y la democracia para descubrir las necesidades que abruman a México. La historia y la literatura, ambas intrínsecamente conectadas, son presentadas a lo largo de la obra como vías para la educación y el conocimiento propio y de los demás. 

"Encontramos ideas que no sólo iluminaron el tiempo vital de Fuentes, sino que siguen siendo y lo serán por mucho tiempo, un punto de referencia y un objeto de reflexión." Diego Valadés

Carlos Fuentes y Luis Buñuel (Calanda, 1900- México D.F. 1983) son dos nombres que resuenan con fuerza en la cultura iberoamericana del siglo XX. El primero, Premio Cervantes y uno de los máximos representantes del boom literario iberoamericano; el segundo, pionero del cine español y uno de los directores más universales y trascendentes del cine, que influyó con su cosmología visual y narrativa el imaginario colectivo de escritores como García Márquez, Cortázar, Vargas Llosa o Donoso. 

Luis Buñuel o la mirada de la Medusa, ensayo inconcluso e inédito de Carlos Fuentes sobre el gran cineasta, hasta ahora oculto en la Universidad de Princeton, llega a los lectores aderezado con cartas inéditas cruzadas entre los dos artistas que ilustran el proceso y contexto de esta obra, dándonos fe de sus relaciones y personalidad, con el telón de fondo de la revolución de Mayo del 68. La capacidad visionaria de Buñuel, el legado de realismo y surrealismo, Sade y la religión o la presencia de la trinidad hispánica –Don Quijote, Don Juan, La Celestina- enhebran esta obra, más allá de etiquetas y rebosante de humanismo.

La edición corre a cargo de Javier Herrera Navarro (Murcia, 1951), bibliotecario e historiador del arte, y uno de los grandes especialistas en la figura de Buñuel. Es autor, entre otros, de Las Hurdes de Buñuel, Evidencia fílmica, estética y lenguaje (2007) y Luis Buñuel en su archivo (2015).

'La mirada buñueliana de Carlos Fuentes, El Cultural, 26 de enero 2018

'Buñuel, el laberinto de Carlos Fuentes', El Mundo, 25 de enero 2018

'Cuando Carlos Fuentes confesaba a Buñuel', El País, 25 de enero 2018

'Luis Buñuel o la mirada de la Medusa', booktrailer

Cine y gran literatura en una obra inédita de Carlos Fuentes.

Esta es la historia de una relación personal con el cine. Carlos Fuentes cuenta cómo fueron sus primeros acercamientos a las salas cinematográficas, de la mano de su padre, su consecuente deslumbramiento ante las imágenes en movimiento en la pantalla de plata, y su ulterior e incurable afición al cine.

El autor tuvo oportunidad de ver películas en un buen número de países a ambos lados del Atlántico, de conocer a grandes directores y celebres actores y actrices, de escribir guiones y ver llevadas al celuloide obras que el escribió, de ser jurado en festivales famosos, e, incluso, de actuar.

De todo ello se deriva una experiencia única que aquí narra en términos absolutamente confesionales y buena parte del tiempo en primera persona. Sus preferencias y gustos, sus obsesiones, su interpretación de obras, actitudes, tendencias, estilos: todo eso y más se encuentra escrito de manera más narrativa que ensayística.

Esta obra, tal y como la dejó escrita el autor, es un regalo para sus lectores, y en especial para aquellos que disfrutan del buen cine de todos los tiempos.

Cinco discursos en los que Fuentes expone ideas tan interesantes como que "la muerte es el origen disfrazado", una tradición en la que beben otros grandes escritores mexicanos como Juan Rulfo. Por otra parte, según el autor, “La novela se sostiene en el desafío de jugar con la simultaneidad del tiempo, sin verse condenada a la linealidad; toda novela fracasa en ese sentido, pero el intento es lo que importa, porque la novela moderna es rebelarse contra eso”.

Conjunto de semblanzas donde narra, recuerda y hace recuentos de hechos, anécdotas, enseñanzas y peripecias vividas con, por o en torno a personas que han sido importantes en su vida; sus compañeros de travesía. Entre las personas que moran en este volumen están Alfonso Reyes, Luis Buñuel, François Mitterrand, André Malraux, Fernando Benítez, Susan Sontag, Pablo Neruda, Julio Cortázar, Ignacio Chávez y Lázaro Cárdenas.

Hubo un momento del otoño de 2011 en que todo parecía estallar en el mundo; comenzaba la pesadilla después del sueño, sobre todo en Europa, donde lo que antes era estable de pronto se convirtió en el escenario de un desastre. Sin embargo, en América Latina las cosas, por una vez en la historia, se asentaban aparentemente en una esperanza que no se ha desbordado, de todos modos, en optimismo. En ese instante singular del mundo, cuando todo parecía ponerse del revés (y del revés ha seguido), se sentaron a hacerse preguntas dos personalidades claves en la historia de América y decisivas en el desarrollo de la cultura y la política en el ámbito del español. Son Ricardo Lagos, socialista, expresidente de Chile, y Carlos Fuentes, escritor mexicano cuya frecuente aparición en los foros públicos ha permitido que le conozcamos no sólo como el gran novelista de Terra nostra sino como el intelectual preocupado por el devenir del mundo. Fuentes y Lagos se refieren a la actualidad (el desastre de la actualidad) y al futuro. ¿Qué pasa? ¿Qué nos espera?

Recorre la evolución de la novela hispanoamericana, desde el descubrimiento de América hasta nuestros días, en torno a la idea central de utopía. Este excelente estudio rastrea los orígenes de la narrativa latinoamericana, analiza el surgimiento e importancia del boom y se completa con un interesante panorama de los nuevos nombres.

Discursos de Gabriel García Márquez y Carlos Fuentes pronunciados en torno a una conmemoración única: los 80 años del Premio Nobel colombiano y los 40 años de la novela Cien años de soledad.

En mayo de 1968, los estudiantes de una buena parte del mundo occidental plantaron cara primero al sistema educativo y, después, a los sistemas políticos dominantes en cada país, con el fin de agitar una sociedad cada vez más adormecida y autocomplaciente. Carlos Fuentes fue testigo privilegiado e integrante del movimiento estudiantil.

Reflexiones sobre la crisis política norteamericana y global provocada por la Administración de George W. Bush.

Fuentes se vale de la crónica memoriosa y el diario personal para explorar la obra de artistas de todos los tiempos, logrando así una educación de la mirada: Jacobo Borges, Juan Soriano, Francisco Zurbarán y Eduardo Chillida, entre otros.

Suerte de autobiografía literaria que, como un diccionario, se construye con entradas temáticas ordenadas de la A a la Z. De Amistad a Zúrich.

Así se expresa Carlos Fuentes sobree la novela Memorias póstumas de Blas Cubas del escritor brasileño Machado de Assis (1839-1908): “no sólo es heredera de la tradición cervantina sino que la potencia y reactualiza. Machado de Assis es la estrella más brillante del cielo novelístico iberoamericano del siglo XIX”. Este ensayo le rinde un homenaje incondicional.

En esta obra el autor reflexiona sobre los problemas que aún enfrenta México. En su visión, la calidad de vida en el siglo XXI dependerá, ante todo, del factor educativo: la educación como base del conocimiento, el conocimiento como base de la información, la información como base del desarrollo.

En Nuevo tiempo mexicano, Carlos Fuentes vuelve la vista hacia el pasado, convirtiendo la historia en una forma de aproximación al presente de México. En la obra no faltan comentarios sobre el alzamiento en Chiapas, los asesinatos de líderes políticos, la situación económica del país o la actitud xenófoba de la frontera con los E.E.U.U.

Textos leídos por Fuentes al recibir el Premio Cervantes 1987 en Alcalá de Henares.

Geografía de la novela es una fascinante combinación de intuiciones, sabidurías y análisis críticos de intensa penetración. Fuentes empieza mediando sobre la ¿muerte? de la novela y termina levantando el mapa de su geografía; en medio, una serie de pequeños estudios imaginativos e iluminadores sobre varios colegas.

En las postrimerías del siglo XX, Europa sigue fantaseando con América, y ésta lleva quinientos años reinventando el viejo continente. En este libro Carlos Fuentes encara la búsqueda de la continuidad cultural que pueda informar y trascender la fragmentación económica y política del mundo hispano.

Presenta una visión de conjunto de la literatura hispanoamericana, puntualizando algunas de sus características más importantes y haciendo una reflexión de fondo sobre el significado de la novela en el contexto de la sociedad y la historia latinoamericanas.

'Don Quixote, the madman, is mad not only because he believed what he read. He is also mad because he believes, as a knight-errant, that justice is his duty and that justice is possible.'

From Zona Sagrada to Terra Nostra, Carlos Fuentes' narrative oscillated between narrative sobriety and the work as a jest that invaded reality to disrupt it.

In his inaugural address at El Colegio Nacional, he pointed out the similarity of totalizing works like Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote and James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

A discourse that extends, retreats, and advances in these essays that encourage us to review and reread these and other works that break reality and invent a new, alternate, and parallel one, but full of rebellion. They highlight their characteristics and make us see the world through different eyes; for example, Don Quixote before it was written, revised in its time, and throughout its existence, in its Arab and Jewish Spain and already tainted by the New World, with its real and fictional characters that emerge from other books and invade other literatures.

An incitement to rebel reading, and to rebel, with a fantasy that is better and more vital than any possible reality.

First published in 1971, Mexican Time has come to be viewed over time as a highly accurate portrayal of the distinct character of Mexico, in which indigenous world-views, the wounds of colonization, the hopes of independence, the challenges of revolution and the ambition and promise of modern Mexico coexist. 50 years after its original publication, this book continues to galvanize reflections on the development and future of the national project called Mexico, and it also constitutes a necessary companion for the narrative work of Carlos Fuentes, which has time and its circular flow as its guiding principle.

“Totality and immediacy are characteristics Fuentes uses to illuminate Mexican Time. It is the very anthesis of his work.” Pedro Ángel Palou, Revista de la Universidad

Si la necesidad, el libre albedrío y el azar son la triple trama de la libertad, el arte es su vehículo, afirma Fuentes en esta reunión de ensayos sobre literatura, cine y pintura.

Carlos Fuentes se encargó de poner en blanco y negro lo que la mayor parte de los autores del boom pensaba acerca de su propia relevancia en la historia de la literatura de América Latina: afirmó que con él y sus contemporáneos se refundaba la narrativa de la región, que con ellos empezaba la verdadera modernidad en nuestras letras. Borges, Onetti o Carpentier eran asimilados al grupo como antecedentes.

Relato de los hechos que llevaron a creer que lo imposible puede ser real.

Veinticinco semblanzas de personajes célebres, retratados en blanco y negro entre 1988 y 1992 por el hijo del escritor.

This book brings together for the first time the previously unpublished correspondence between two of the greatest Latin American novelists, Chilean José Donoso and Mexican Carlos Fuentes. A conversation between two close friends that spanned decades, covering one of the most vibrant periods in the history and literature of our continent. A paused dialogue, typical of the epistolary genre, that reveals two brilliant minds and two lives dedicated to writing. Here, they share their readings, opinions, and ideas, as well as sharp and sincere critiques of their manuscripts, personal intimacies, and reflections on the cultural and political events around them. The selection and editing were done by Cecilia García Huidobro and Augusto Wong.

The exceptional correspondence between four great writers who were also great friends and allies. An invaluable testament to an incomparable epoch and generation.

Written between 1955 and 2012, the 207 letters in this book reproduce the friendship that was built up between four of the greatest boom writers, from different countries and each with his own narrative project. Although they would drift apart over time because of political and personal differences, for decades they regaled each other with generous displays of affection and admiration, shared their doubts and valuable advice on the craft of writing, and were accomplices in their mutual success, despite the fact that success came to each of them at a different time and in a different way.

This newly published correspondence takes the reader behind the curtains into the private lives underlying that success. It constitutes an invaluable document not only for understanding a key period in Latin American literature and history, but also for discovering the most human and private side of Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.  

Edition by Carlos Aguirre, Gerald Martin, Javier Munguía y Augusto Wong Campos.

“A luminous book, as enduring as the history it describes. Las cartas del Boom evokes the spirit of elation in which the most powerful phenomenon of 20th century literary creation in Spanish emerged.” Juan Cruz, El Periódico

“These letters make for absorbing reading and bring to light the hidden workings of literature. Truly a historical book.” El Cultural

“An epistolary book like few others, because it is a portrait of an epoch." Sergio Ramirez

“In an epoch where the so-called literatures of the self prevail, these letters that were not written with literary intent have now become, inadvertently, literature (of the self) and a historical document.” Laura Ventura, La Nación

“An exceptional human, intellectual and literary document (...) What makes the volume special is the lay-out of this epistolary, which succeeds in creating the sensation of a live conversation between the four writers. (...) They are like teenagers discussing what they are passionate about and fall in love with. Their voices can be heard, sometimes almost audible, sometimes fast, measured or meditative, and concerned with giving each other support. They express themselves sincerely and candidly when they comment on their works.” Winston Manrique Sabogal

“Seeing some of the greatest authors of the 20th century talking to each other in private, without imagining that anyone will find out what they are saying, turns the reader of their correspondence into someone spying on the history of literature.” Xavi Ayén, La Vanguardia

Selección antológica de las obras de Carlos Fuentes. Edición y prólogo a cargo de Julio Ortega.

Selección de dieciséis conversaciones que contribuyen al retrato del vasto paisaje biográfico y literario de este escritor fundamental.

 Fuentes ha reunido ensayos que reflejan tres de los grandes elementos de su obra: la autobiografía, el amor por la literatura y la política. Incluyen sus reflexiones sobre sus inicios como escritor, su célebre discurso en la Universidad de Harvard y sus revisiones mordaces de Cervantes, Gabriel García Márquez y Borges.

Antología de relatos.