Smitten by the modernity of Cervantes and Borges at an early age, Carlos Fuentes has written extensively on the cultures of the Americas and elsewhere. His work includes over a dozen novels, among them The Death of Artemio Cruz, Christopher Unborn, The Old Gringo, and Terra Nostra, several volumes of short stories, numerous essays on literary, cultural, and political topics, and some theater. In this book, Raymond Leslie Williams traces the themes of history, culture, and identity in Fuentes' work, particularly in his complex, major novel Terra Nostra. He opens with a biography of Fuentes that links his works to his intellectual life. The heart of the study is Williams' extensive reading of the novel Terra Nostra, in which Fuentes explores the presence of Spanish culture and history in Latin America. Williams concludes with a look at how Fuentes' other fiction relates to Terra Nostra, including Fuentes' own division of his work into fourteen cycles that he calls "La Edad del Tiempo," and with an interview in which Fuentes discusses his concept of this cyclical division.

Smitten by the modernity of Cervantes and Borges at an early age, Carlos Fuentes has written extensively on the cultures of the Americas and on those elsewhere in the world. His work includes over a dozen novels, among them the Death of Artemio Cruz, Christopher Unborn, The Old Gringo, and Terra Nostra, several volumes of short stories, numerous essays on literary, cultural, and political topics, and some theater. In this book, Raymond Leslie Williams traces the themes of history, culture, and identity in Fuentes' work, particularly in his complex, major novel Terra Nostra. He opens with a biography of Fuentes that links his works to his intellectual life, a life that has been centrally concerned with finding and defining the source and character of Latin American culture. The heart of the study is Williams' extensive reading of the novel Terra Nostra, in which Fuentes explores the presence of Spanish culture and history in Latin America. Williams concludes with a look at how Fuentes' other fiction relates to Terra Nostra, including Fuentes' own division of his work into fourteen cycles that he calls "La Edad del Tiempo," and with an interview in which Fuentes discusses his concept of this cyclical division. Williams' analysis maps a terrain often left unexplored - the "Spanishness" of Latin American culture - and offers the most in-depth study currently available on Latin America's most prolific living novelist. It will be vital reading for all students of Latin American literature.

In Carlos Fuentes, Mexico, and Modernity, Maarten van Delden argues that there is a fundamental paradox at the heart of Fuentes's vision of Mexico and in his role as novelist and critic in putting forth that vision. This paradox hinges on the tension between national identity and modernity. A significant internal conflict emerges in Fuentes's work from his attempt to stake out two different positions for himself, as experimental novelist and as politically engaged and responsible intellectual. Drawing from the fiction, literary essays, and political journalism, van Delden places these tensions in Fuentes's work in relation to the larger debates about modernity and postmodernity in Latin America. He concludes that Fuentes is fundamentally a modernist writer, in spite of the fact that he occasionally gravitates toward the postmodernist position in literature and politics. Van Delden's thorough command of the subject matter, his innovative and sometimes iconoclastic conclusions, and his clear and engaging writing style make this study more than just an interpretation of Fuentes's work. Carlos Fuentes, Mexico, and Modernity offers nothing less than a comprehensive analysis of Fuentes's work. Carlos Fuentes, Mexico, and Modernity offers nothing less than a comprehensive analysis of Fuentes's intellectual development in the context of modern Mexican political and cultural life.

A Study Guide for Carlos Fuentes's "The Old Gringo," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

This volume features approximately 600 entries that represent the major writers, literary schools, and cultural movements in the history of Mexican literature. A collaborative effort by American, Mexican, and Hispanic scholars, the text contains bibliographical, biographical, and critical material--placing each work cited within its cultural and historical framework. Intended to enrich the English-speaking public's appreciation of the rich diversity of Mexican literature, works are selected on the basis of their contribution toward an understanding of this unique artistry. The dictionary contains entries keyed by author and works, the length of each entry determined by the relative significance of the writer or movement being discussed. Each biographical entry identifies the author's literary contribution by including facts about his or her life and works, a chronological list of works, a supplementary bibliography, and, when appropriate, critical notes. Authors are listed alphabetically and cross-referenced both within the text and the index to facilitate easy access to information. Selected bibliographical entries are also listed alphabetically by author and include both the original title and English translation, publisher, date and place of publication, and number of pages.

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Romance Languages - Latin American Studies, grade: 1,3, University of Toronto, language: English, abstract: In her essay "Postcolonialism and Latin American literature: the case of Carlos Fuentes" Nadia Lie describes two different currents of Postcolonialism: the first one is the literature that grew out of colonial experience in Latin America and is considered an answer to the over present literature of the oppressing European literary traditions. The second one is characterized by a set of theoretical concerns and reading strategies. Rather than merely "writing back", a term introduced by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, this approach suggests that cultural differences are constructed by replacing the strong binary opposition "us" versus "the other" with concepts of hybridity, in-betweenness and border thinking (see Lie 2005: 139-140). The early work of Mexican author Carlos Fuentes (*1928) can be seen in an intermediate position between these two concepts. Even though the theme of otherness and opposition is very present in his work, as can be seen in La frontera de cristal (1995) and his early novel Aura (1962), his writing is full of intertextual references that show his appreciation for both European and Latin American literary tradition. As part of the "Boom" movement in Latin American literature he also uses supernatural and gothic elements that sometimes make it hard or even impossible to distinguish between reality and illusion: According to this aesthetic, unreal things are treated as if realistic and mundane, and mundane things as if unreal. Plots, while often based on real experiences, incorporate strange, fantastic, and legendary elements, mythical peoples, speculative settings, and characters who, while plausible, could also be unreal, and combine the true, the imaginary, and the nonexistent in such a way that they are difficult to separate. (Pope 1996: 229) Fuentes' novel Aura is an