Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes Macías audio was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are The Death of Artemio Cruz, Aura, Terra Nostra, The Old Gringoand Christopher Unborn. In his obituary, the New York Times described him as "one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world" and an important influence on the Latin American Boom, the "explosion of Latin American literature in the 1960s and '70s", while The Guardian called him "Mexico's most celebrated novelist". His many literary honors include...
NationalityMexican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth11 November 1928
CityPanama City, Panama
CountryMexico
Carlos Fuentes quotes about
One puts off the biography like you put off death. To write an autobiography is to etch the words on your own gravestone.
Reading, writing, teaching, learning, are all activities aimed at introducing civilizations to each other.
Diplomacy in a sense is the opposite of writing. You have to disperse yourself so much: the lady who comes in crying because shes had a fight with the secretary; exports and imports; students in trouble; thumbtacks for the embassy.
I always felt a little worm inside me: 'Now you need to write a novel with a woman protagonist.
Death is the great Maecenas, Death is the great angel of writing. You must write because you are not going to live any more.
One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.
You have an absolute freedom in Mexican writing today in which you dont necessarily have to deal with the Mexican identity. You know why? Because we have an identity... We know who we are. We know what it means to be a Mexican.
You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.
I need, therefore I imagine.
The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.
In Latin America, even atheists are Catholics.
If the Soviet Union can give up the Brezhnev Doctrine for the Sinatra Doctrine, the United States can give up the James Monroe Doctrine for the Marilyn Monroe Doctrine: Let's all go to bed wearing the perfume we like best.
[The Mexican revolution] was a break with the past to recover the past. We were trying to deny we had an Indian and a black and a Spanish past. The Mexican Revolution accepted all heritages. It allowed Mexico to be mestizo.
Contrary to the macho culture of Mexico, both my grandmothers were very brave young widows. I was always very close to these hard-working, intelligent women.