Carlos Fuentes, Mexico, and Modernity

by Maarten van Delden

Overview

In Carlos Fuentes, Mexico, and Modernity, Van Delden argues that there is a fundamental paradox at the heart of Fuentes's vision of Mexico and in his role as novelist and critic in putting forth that vision. This paradox hinges on the tension between national identity and modernity. A significant internal conflict emerges in Fuentes's work from his attempt to stake out two different positions for himself, as experimental novelist and as politically engaged and responsible intellectual. Drawing from his fiction, literary essays, and political journalism, Van Delden places these tensions in Fuentes's work in relation to the larger debates about modernity and postmodernity in Latin America. He concludes that Fuentes is fundamentally a modernist writer, in spite of the fact that he occasionally gravitates toward the postmodernist position in literature and politics.

Van Delden's thorough command of the subject matter, his innovative and sometimes iconoclastic conclusions, and his clear and engaging writing style make this study more than just an interpretation of Fuentes's work. Carlos Fuentes, Mexico, and Modernity offers nothing less than a comprehensive analysis of Fuentes's intellectual development in the context of modern Mexican political and cultural life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826513458
Publisher:	Vanderbilt University Press
Publication date:	03/02/1998
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Maarten van Delden is Professor of Latin American literature and Chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UCLA.

What People are Saying About This

Walter Abish

Maarten van Delden's insight into Carlos Fuentes is a triumph of scholarship. This challenging study is cause for celebration.

Editorial Reviews

Maarten van Delden's insight into Carlos Fuentes is a triumph of scholarship. This challenging study is cause for celebration.
—Walter Abish

This lucid book clearly delineates the features of an entire epoch in, the intellectual life of Mexico. Its analysis provides a key to understanding one of the key authors of our time and one of the leading characters in twentieth-century Latin America.
—Alberto Ruy Sanchez

This thoroughly researched and well-documented volume offers an in-depth look at the literary and political formation of Mexico's premier novelist and how he fits into the modernism/postmodernism debate. It is destined to become a much-cited work and should be required reading for anyone interested in Mexican literary or cultural studies.
—Choice Outstanding Academic Book 1998

Van Delden effectively explores the paradox at the heart of Fuentes's vision of Mexico: the tension between national identity, on the one hand, and cosmopolitanism and modernity, on the other.
—George Yudice, New York University

From the Publisher

"This thoroughly researched and well-documented volume offers an in-depth look at the literary and political formation of Mexico's premier novelist and how he fits into the modernism/postmodernism debate. It is destined to become a much-cited work and should be required reading for anyone interested in Mexican literary or cultural studies."-Choice Outstanding Academic Book (September 1998)

Choice