This I Believe
An A to Z of a Life
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In this masterly, deeply personal, and provocative book, the internationally renowned Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, whose work has been called “a combination of Poe, Baudelaire, and Isak Dinesen” (Newsweek), steps back to survey the wellsprings of art and ideology, the events that have shaped our time, and his extraordinary life and fiercest passions.
Arranged alphabetically from “Amore” to “Zurich,” This I Believe 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 Buñuel.
Along the way, we find reflection on the mixed curse and blessing of globalization; memories of a sexual initiation in Zurich; a fond tracing of a family tree heavy with poets, dreamers, and diplomats; evocations of the streets, cafés, and bedrooms of Washington, Paris, Santiago de Chile, Cambridge, Oaxaca, and New York; and a celebration of literary heroes including Balzac, Cervantes, Faulkner, Kafka, and Shakespeare. Throughout, Fuentes captivates with the power of his intellect and his prose.
Here, too, are vivid, often heartbreaking glimpses into his personal life. “Silvia” is a powerful love letter to his beloved wife. In “Children,” Fuentes recalls the births of his daughters and the tragic death of his son; in “Cinema” he relives the magic of films such as Citizen Kane and The Wizard of Oz. Further extending his reach, he examines the collision between history and contemporary life in “Civil Society,” “Left,” and “Revolution.”
And he poignantly addresses the experiences we all hold in common as he grapples with beauty, death, freedom, God, and sex. By turns provocative and intimate, partisan and universal, this book is a brilliant summation of an international literary career. Revisiting the influences, commitments, readings, and insights of a lifetime, Fuentes has fashioned a magnificently coherent statement of his view of the world, reminding us once again why reading Fuentes is “like standing beneath the dome of the Sistine Chapel. . . . The breadth and enormity of this accomplishment is breathtaking” (The Denver Post).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"I hope that the reader of this book will discover the various kinds of love... contained in each chapter of my personal alphabet," acclaimed Mexican novelist Fuentes (The Old Gringo; Inez; etc.) declares in this lovingly crafted abecedary of his life. In his characteristically luminous prose, Fuentes traces the power of love to transform and to endure through his relationships with his children, his writing, his favorite writers and film directors, and his encounters with the devastation and hope of revolution. Meditations of several pages each range over topics from globalization and revolution to Balzac, sex and God.In a profound exploration of the novel, Fuentes writes that while it may criticize the world, it must not be dogmatic: "Politics can be dogmatic. The novel can only be enigmatic." Writing of cinema, Fuentes offers a paean to beauty as reflected in the faces of film's leading actresses: "hat would our... lives be without the beauty, illusion, and passion granted us by the faces of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, Louise Brooks and Audrey Hepburn, Gene Tierney and Ava Gardner?" Meditating on the ecstasies of sex, he declares that the end of a sexual relationship was the time when sex could be transformed into literature. "A body of words crying out for the closeness of another body of words."Elegant and lyrical (and beautifully translated), Fuentes's lush memoir guides us on an exhilarating journey through his life and into the world at large.
