Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes, born in 1928, Mexican writer, who combines a deep awareness of history with experimental narrative techniques to develop his themes. His writings have heavily influenced contemporary Latin American literature.

Fuentes was born in Panama City, Panama. The son of a diplomat, he traveled and lived in North America, South America, and Europe. He received a law degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and pursued postgraduate studies at the Institute of Advanced International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. In the early 1950s, and again from 1975 to 1977, he worked as a diplomat for the Mexican government.

By the mid-1950s Fuentes was focused on his writing career. His first published works were short stories, such as those in the collection Los días enmascarados (The Masked Days, 1954). In 1958 he published his first novel, La región más transparente (translated as Where the Air Is Clear,1960), in which he bitterly indicted Mexican society. The book established Fuentes's preoccupation with Mexican history and national identity as well as his innovative use of flashbacks, the thoughts of characters, and other experimental techniques to build complex narratives. He achieved international acclaim with the novel La muerte de Artemio Cruz (1962; The Death of Artemio Cruz,1964), which tells the story of a dying Mexican political boss agonizing over the immoral acts of his life. Fuentes followed these books with many novels, including Cambio del piel (1967; A Change of Skin,1968), Terra nostra (1975; translated 1976), El gringo viejo (1985; The Old Gringo,1985), and Diana, o, la cazadora solitaria (1994; Diana, The Goddess Who Hunts Alone, 1995). Fuentes continued to write short stories, as well as writing plays, books of essays, and works of literary criticism, notably La nueva novela hispanoamericana (The New Latin American Novel, 1969).