Most Popular Books by Carlos Fuentes

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.

CONTENIDO: Detroit: 1999 - Catemaco: 1905 - México DF: 1922 - Paseo de la reforma: 1930 - Avenida sonora: 1934 - Parque de la Lama: 1938 - Café de París: 1939 - Colonia Roma: 1941 - Lanzarote: 1949 - Cuernavaca: 1952 - Plaza Río de Janeiro: 1965 - Zona de rosa: 1970 - Catemaco: 1972 - Los Ángeles: 2000.

Winner of the Cervantes Prize Carlos Fuentes, one of the world’s most acclaimed authors, is at the height of his powers in this stunning new novel—a magnificent epic of passion, magic, and desire in modern Mexico, a rich and remarkable tapestry set in a world where free will fights with the wishes of the gods. Josué Nadal has lost more than his innocence: He has been robbed of his life—and his posthumous narration sets the tone for a brilliantly written novel that blends mysticism and realism. Josué tells of his fateful meeting as a skinny, awkward teen with Jericó, the vigorous boy who will become his twin, his best friend, and his shadow. Both orphans, the two young men intend to spend their lives in intellectual pursuit—until they enter an adult landscape of sex, crime, and ambition that will test their pledge and alter their lives forever. Idealistic Josué goes to work for a high-tech visionary whose stunning assistant will introduce him to a life of desire; cynical Jericó is enlisted by the Mexican president in a scheme to sell happiness to the impoverished masses. On his journey into a web of illegality in which he will be estranged from Jericó, Josué is aided and impeded by a cast of unforgettable characters: a mad, imprisoned murderer with a warning of revenge, an elegant aviatrix and addict seeking to be saved, a prostitute shared by both men who may have murdered her way into a brilliant marriage, and the prophet Ezekiel himself. Mixing ancient mythologies with the sensuousness and avarice and need of the twenty-first century, Destiny and Desire is a monumental achievement from one of the masters of contemporary literature.

An epic and heartbreaking love story that will leave no one untouched.

In this novel, the famous author forsakes his usual subject-- Mexico-- and writes a historical romance about Argentina''s nineteenth-century war of independence.

Where, Carlos Fuentes asks, is a modern-day vampire to roost? Why not Mexico City, populated by ten million blood sausages (that is, people), and a police force who won’t mind a few disappearances? “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 Asunción 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?

De ontmoeting met een mysterieuze jonge vrouw brengt een man in een verwarrende situatie.

In 1972, in his book The New Hispanic American Novel, Carlos Fuentes undertook to put into black and white what most authors of the Boom period thought about their own relevance in the history of Latin American literature. Fuentes asserted that with him and his contemporaries, the region''s narrative was refounded, that with them, true modernity in our literature began. The exceptions, authors like Borges, Onetti, and Carpentier, were assimilated into the group as antecedents. The gesture was one of arrogance that ignored any relevance to the Latin American novel of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It implied a rewriting of history.

La breve y extraordinaria historia de Carlos Pizarro es la de un héroe trágico. Recio, imbatible, lleno de cualidades, Pizarro pasó de la militancia comunista a la guerrilla, y de ahí a la amnistía y a postularse como candidato a la presidencia de Colombia. Esta novela es una crónica de su vida, tanto histórica como personal, que a partir del relato de hechos fidedignos se interna en la ficción. Más allá de los datos conocidos, entre el inevitable narcotráfico, una guerrilla que para negociar la paz debe seguir disparando, la ausencia de proyecto nacional y la indomable voluntad de luchar, en esta obra póstuma de Carlos Fuentes los lectores conocerán tanto a un personaje con rasgos épicos como a una persona compleja, vulnerable, plena de amor y de esperanza. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION The short and extraordinary story of Carlos Pizarro is that of a tragic hero. Robust, unbeatable, and full of virtue, Pizarro went from militant communism to becoming a guerrilla soldier, from there to amnesty, and later went on to become a candidate for president of Colombia. This novel is a chronicle of his life, both historical and personal, and through the tale of reliable facts the reader delves into the fiction. Beyond the well-known facts, between the inevitable drug trafficking, a guerrilla who must keep shooting in order to negotiate peace, the absence of a national plan, and the indomitable will to fight, in this posthumous work by Carlos Fuentes, readers will get to know a character who is as epic as he is complex, vulnerable, and full of love and hope.

This book is Fuentes''s self-dissecting autobiographical novel written in his later years. Through rich fragments of memory and stream-of-consciousness confessions, he lays bare a true personal life story, using literature to resurrect the woman he loved--Diana, named after the moon goddess. She emerged from rural America to become a Hollywood star, the Joan of Arc of the silver screen--an idealist devoted to the civil rights movement and liberalism, yet also a victim of the 1960s U.S. anti-espionage program, ultimately dying in solitude...