My name is Ixca Cienfuegos. I was born and I live in Mexico City. Which is not so grave: in Mexico City there is never tragedy but only outrage. Thus begins Carlos Fuentes's first novel, unfolding a panorama in which many people's lives depend on the fact that they live in today's Mexico City, where the air is clear and yet filled with the old gods and devils still struggling to overcome the new, where a long and bloody revolution is still being fought and paid for in flesh. The vividness of Fuentes's characters and the country that is theirs has made many critics claim this as his best novel. It is unquestionably among the finest works of literature to be produced in the Western Hemisphere.

Five novellas on the Spanish conquest of the New World which mix drama, philosophy and satire. In "The Two Americas" instead of discovering America, Columbus discovers paradise and decides to stay.

The critically acclaimed Mexican writer shares his thoughts, personal reflections, insights, and observations on topics ranging from "Amor" to "Zurich" and including political and social commentary, profiles of the writers who have influenced his work, the writer's life, and the emotions and passions of the human spirit.

In "Inez, " readers find Carlos Fuentes at the height of his magical and realist powers in a tale of two couples. This profound and beautiful work confirms his standing as Mexico's preeminent novelist.

The internationally acclaimed author Carlos Fuentes, winner of the Cervantes Prize and the Latin Civilization Award, delivers a stunning work of fiction about family and love across an expanse of Mexican life, reminding us why he has been called “a combination of Poe, Baudelaire, and Isak Dinesen” (Newsweek). In these masterly vignettes, Fuentes explores Tolstoy’s classic observation that “happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” In “A Family Like Any Other,” each member of the Pagan family lives in isolation, despite sharing a tiny house. In “The Mariachi’s Mother,” the limitless devotion of a woman is revealed as she secretly tends to her estranged son’s wounds. “Sweethearts” reunites old lovers unexpectedly and opens up the possibilities for other lives and other loves. These are just a few of the remarkable stories in Happy Families, but they all inhabit Fuentes’s trademark Mexico, where modern obsessions bump up against those of the mythic past, and the result is a triumphant display of the many ways we reach out to one another and find salvation through irrepressible acts of love. In this spectacular translation, the acclaimed Edith Grossman captures the full weight of Fuentes’s range. Whether writing in the language of the street or in straightforward, elegant prose, Fuentes gives us stories connected by love, including the failure of love–between spouses, lovers, parents and children, siblings. From the Mexican presidential palace to the novels of the poor and the vast expanse of humanity in between, Happy Families is a magnificent portrait of modern life in all its complicated beauty, as told by one of the world’s most celebrated writers. Praise for Carlos Fuentes Winner of the Cervantes Prize The Old Gringo “A dazzling novel that possesses the weight and resonance of myth [and] the fierce magic of a remembered dream.” –The New York Times The Death of Artemio Cruz “Remarkable in the scope of the human drama it pictures, the corrosive satire and sharp dialogue.” –The New York Times Book Review The Years with Laura Díaz “Reading this magnificent novel is like standing beneath the dome of the Sistine Chapel. . . . The breadth and enormity of this accomplishment is breathtaking.” –The Denver Post This I Believe “Engaging, offering surprising conclusions, provocations or turns of phrase . . . Put down the page-turner and dare to drink these full-bodied, red, shining words.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review The Eagle’s Throne “Dazzling, razor-sharp . . . prescient . . . a feast of political insight.” –The Washington Post Book World

Set during the Mexican Revolution, a frustrated spinster, a retired journalist, and a fiery young general are inexplicably drawn together as they face love, death and war.

First published in 1968, Carlos Fuentes's controversial novel A Change of Skin tells the story of four persons who drive from Mexico City to Veracruz one Palm Sunday. The Driver of the car is Franz, an ex-Nazi, and with him is his young Mexican lover Isabel, the talented but failed poet Javier, and his embittered wife, Elizabeth. There is a fifth person as well--the Narrator. Through him we discover that all the characters are searching for some real value in their lives: love for Elizabeth, creating in the case of Javier, experience for Isabel, and redemption for Franz.

The Good Conscience is Carlos Fuentes's second novel. The scene is Guanajuato, a provincial capital in Central Mexico, once one of the world's richest mining centers. The Ceballos family has been reinstated to power, and adolescent Jaime Ceballos, its only heir, is torn between the practical reality of his family's life and the idealism of his youth and his Catholic education. His father is a good man but weak; his uncle is powerful, yet his actions are inconsistent with his professed beliefs. Jaime's struggle to emerge as a man with a "good conscience" forms the theme of the book: can a rebel correct the evils of an established system and at the same time retain the integrity of his principles?

A collection of essays reflecting the author's beginnings as a writer and his love of literature and politics.