MEXICO CITY
( By Jack Schnedler, Arkansas Democrat Gazette) October 25,
2007 — Carlos Fuentes, Mexico’s most illustrious living
cultural figure, is likeliest to be familiar to Americans
for The Old Gringo, his best-selling 1985 novel that was
made into a movie starring Gregory Peck, Jane Fonda and
Jimmy Smits.
The 76-year-old Fuentes will become better known to Arkansans this week, when he spends two days in Little Rock. On Monday, he’ll deliver the Winthrop Rockefeller Distinguished Lecture at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
“This is a rare chance for UALR students and other Arkansans to interact with one of the world’s greatest thinkers,” says Deborah Baldwin, a UALR professor of history specializing in Latin America. “Few authors have had the political and cultural impact of Carlos Fuentes. We are fortunate to have him visit our campus.”
Baldwin, a member of the Rockefeller Lecture Series board, suggests that American readers might find The Old Gringo to be the best starting point for sampling Fuentes’ work. It is said to have been the first book by a Mexican author to appear on The New York Times best-seller list.
As described in a Times review two decades ago, The Old Gringo is “on casual reading, an imagined conclusion to the life of Ambrose Bierce, the San Francisco writer of sentimental stories and misanthropic newspaper columns who disappeared in Mexico in 1914.”
But below the surface, continues the review, this is Fuentes’ “most ambitious novel, the first in which he attempts to integrate all that he knows and can call up of history, myth and thought. He uses the opposition between nations, the tensions of unequals ((the United States and Mexico) that share a common border, to drive the plot of the novel and to motivate the revelations of history and analogue.”
While an admirer of The Old Gringo, Baldwin finds Fuentes ’ 1962 novel The Death of Artemio Cruz — which first brought him international acclaim.
“In this class, I almost always include a novel that revolves around the Mexican Revolution of 1911, which brought Mexico into the modern world and changed that nation profoundly,” says Baldwin. “I often assign The Death of Artemio Cruz. What I like about Fuentes is that he takes the experience of that revolution and puts a human face on it.”
The title character is portrayed as a tragic figure who fights bravely during the 1911 revolution but then loses his idealism and marries into a family of wealthy landowners.
That path leads him to corruption in a richly textured story that begins with Cruz on his deathbed.
“As a historian, I talk about the evidence that helps us analyze the Mexican Revolution,” Baldwin says. “In The Death of Artemio Cruz, my students get the personal side of it. The novel deals with the struggles of decision-making for someone living in the context of the revolution, as well as what it means for family relationships, devotion to country and ethics. I am able to talk about history. Fuentes is able to talk about heart and soul.”
Fuentes was born in Panama City on Nov. 11, 1928, to Mexican diplomats. He received a cosmopolitan education at private schools in Washington and five South American capitals. Later he earned a law degree at the National University of Mexico and studied economics in Switzerland.
During his university years, Fuentes became a Marxist and joined the Communist Party. He served Mexico as a diplomat until 1959 before turning to writing. During the 1960s, he lived mostly in Europe — at a time when U. S. authorities barred him from entering this country because of his political views. He remains a stern critic of American foreign policy.
Fuentes moved to Paris after protesting the Mexican government’s repression of student protests before the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. After a turn of events, he served as Mexico’s ambassador to France in the 1970 s. He now divides his time between Mexico City and London, while lecturing regularly in the United States.
Sometimes classified in the literary genre of “magical realism” and sometimes compared with the late Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, Fuentes has had 15 of his books published in English in the United States. In recent years, he has turned more toward nonfiction, including the political work Contra Bush, published in 2007 in Spanish. The English translation is Against Bush.
Scheduled for publication in early 2007 is This I Believe, described by publisher Random House as a “deeply personal and provocative book.” Arranged alphabetically by subject, from “Amore” to “Zurich,” this next volume “takes us on a marvelous inner journey with a great writer. Fuentes ranges wide, from contradictions inherent in Latin American culture and politics to his long friendship with director Luis Bunuel.”
