ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT – 1.

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Nov 10 1998 (IPS) - Mexico’s grand old man of letters Carlos Fuentes, who turned 70 on Nov 11, says that probably he has written his last piece of literaturejust as critics elevated him to the throne previously occupied by Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz.

Fuentes has been writing for 45 years, turning out novels, essays and political analyses. He not only has won respect from critics for his intellectual capacity, but also for his public relations ability. On his birthday had no competition for the crown.

“There is no doubt that the new king (of Mexican literature) is Carlos Fuentes,” said literary critic Emanuel Carballo who, like most others, had regarded Octavio Paz as the monarch of all exican writers until paz died last April.

Fuentes had many ideological and political differences with Paz which eventually led to a distancing on a personal level in 1988. Paz won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1990 and, while Fuentes subsequently has been mentioned as a candidate for the honour, he never has been successful.

Fuentes stated it was “possible” that he would never write another book when he finished recently “The Years of Laura Diaz – which has yet to be published. The latest novel describes a slice of Mexican history through the eyes of women.

This year marked the 4oth anniversary of the publication of the author’s first and best-known novel, “Where the Air is Clear” – considered one of the most important books of Hispanic American literature.

At the age of 30, Fuentes explored in that work the history and personality of urban Mexicans. At the time, critics characterised the novel as “bold”, “erotic” and “modernist.”

In order to write that novel, Fuentes commented that he was forced to turn himself into a “bohemian” of Mexico City.

“I would spend my nights stalking the city like a vampire. I loved the nightlife, the brothels, cabarets, the magical places where beggars lived. My friends were the prostitutes,” he recalled.

Where the Air is Clear was translated into many languages and , this yerar, was re-published again in honour of the author’s birthday which Fuentes, however, opted to celebrate privately.

Between his first book and his last, Fuentes has received virtually all existing awards for Mexican literature as well as numerous international awards, such as the Romulo Gallegos Prize, the Cervantes Prize, and the Prince of Asturias Prize for Letters.

A supporter of left-wing causes, a critic of the Mexican political system and today an open member of the opposition – although in the 1970s he served as mexico’s ambassador in France – Fuentes considers himself a ‘militant intellectual.’

“In a country like ours, the intellectual cannot be removed from the struggle for political transformation, which, in the last instance, also means a cultural transformation,” he declared. “The writer in Mexico gives voice to those who otherwise cannot make themselves heard.”

From the outset, Fuentes supported revolutionary movements in Cuba and Nicaragua, and from an early age began promoting and creating cultural magazines, intellectual collectives and editorial teams. His proposal to create a center-left political party, however, never achieved fruition.

Fuentes’ voluminous output – he maintains he used to write for five hours each day – has been translated into 20 languages and adapted for cinema, theatre and television. His falling out with Octavio Paz in 1988 came when Paz’s disciple, historian Enrique Krauze, wrote an essay criticizing Fuentes’ work and his personality.

“Fuentes had a “bourgeois lifestyle and an anti-bourgeois ideology,” often taking a “trendy” position while posing as a “dandy guerrilla” Krauze wrote.

Still, when Paz died, Fuentes spoke and wrote favorably of his former friend and recalled that “we had a long friendship, but sometimes cockroaches get in the way – ambitious cockroaches” who put distance between people.

For literary critic Federico Campbell, Fuentes was always the object of envy, because he always had the image of being a “winner.” We are talking about a “first world writer, a polyglot, the highly cultured son of a diplomat who was educated in the United States and in Europe.”

Fuentes, “with that enormous talent, is a writer that dedicated himself exclusively to his craft – and to cultivating his public relations,” Campbell pointed out. (FIN/IPS/dc/mj/cr ip/mg/mk/98)