Mexican Literature Series

One of the great masterpieces of modern Latin American fiction, Terra Nostra is concerned with nothing less than the history of Spain and of South America, with the Indian Gods and with Christianity, with the birth, the passion, and the death of civilizations. Fuentes skillfully blends a wide range of literary forms, stories within stories, Mexican and Spanish myth, and famous literary characters in this novel that is both a historical epic and an apocalyptic vision of modern times. Terra Nostra is that most ambitious and rare of creations--a total work of art.

Vlad

by Carlos Fuentes

Published 15 November 2010

Vlad is Vlad the Impaler, of course, whose mythic cruelty was an inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. In this sly sequel, Vlad really is undead: dispossessed after centuries of mayhem by Eastern European wars and rampant blood shortages. More than a postmodern riff on the vampire craze, Vlad is also an anatomy of the Mexican bourgeoisie, as well as our culture's ways of dealing with death. For--as in Dracula--Vlad has need of both a lawyer and a real-estate agent in order to establish his new kingdom, and Yves Navarro and his wife Asuncion fit the bill nicely. Having recently lost a son, might they not welcome the chance to see their remaining child live forever? More importantly, are the pleasures of middle-class life enough to keep one from joining the legions of the damned?

Distant Relations

by Carlos Fuentes

Published 5 July 1982

Distant Relations begins in the elegant Automobile club de France as an elderly Count tells a story to the unnamed narrator. But the book does not remain here in the cafe, nor even in France. Instead, as the Count speaks, the story moves across time and space, from Latin America to Europe, from generation to generation. We hear of Hugo, a noted Mexican archeologist, and of his young son, Victor, who were once the Count's houseguests. He tells of their time in France, of their complicated pasts and their uncertain relationships. This is a story of lost memory and failed promises, one about the past's unbending influence on the present. Distant Relations is an ambitious novel whose tale of confused familial relations explodes into one about the conflict between the Old World and the New.

Adam in Eden

by Carlos Fuentes

Published 1 December 2012

In this comic novel of political intrigue, Adam Gorozpe, a respected businessman in Mexico, has a life so perfect that he might as well be his namesake in the Garden of Eden--but there are snakes in this Eden too. For one thing, Adam's wife Priscila has fallen in love with the brash director of national security--also named Adam--who uses violence against token victims to hide the fact that he's letting drug runners, murderers, and kidnappers go free. Another unlikely snake is the little Boy-God who's started preaching in the street wearing a white tunic and stick-on wings, inspiring Adam's brother-in-law to give up his job writing soap operas to follow this junior deity and implore Adam to do the same. Even Elle, Adam's mistress, thinks the boy is important to their salvation--especially now that it seems the other Adam has put out a contract on Adam Gorozpe. To save his relationship, his marriage, his life, and the soul of his country, perhaps Adam will indeed have to call upon the wrath of the angels to expel all these snakes from his Mexican Eden.

The Great Latin American Novel

by Carlos Fuentes

Published 9 November 2016

One of the late Carlos Fuentes's final projects, this compendium of his criticism traces the evolution of the Latin American novel from the discovery of America to the present day. Combining historical perspective with personal and often opinionated interpretation, Fuentes gives us a tour from Machado de Assis to Borges and beyond. A landmark analysis, as well as a scintillating and often wry commentary on a great author's peers and influences, this book is as much a contribution to Latin American literature as it is a chronicle of that literature's greatest achievements.

Nietzsche on His Balcony

by Carlos Fuentes

Published 9 December 2016

On a hot, insomniac night at the Hotel Metropol, the novelist Carlos Fuentes steps onto his balcony only to find another man on the balcony next door. The other man asks for news of the social strife turning into revolution in the unnamed city below them. He reveals himself as the 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, permitted to revisit earth once a year for 24 hours based on his theory of eternal return. With tenderness and gallows humor, the novelist and the philosopher unflinchingly tell the story of the beginning of the revolution, its triumph, fanaticism, terror, and retrenchment: a story of love, friendship, family, commitment, passion, corruption, betrayal, violence, and hope.