Christopher Unborn

by Carlos Fuentes, Alfred MacAdam (Translator)

Overview

Conceived exactly nine months before the five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery of the New World, the narrator of Christopher Unborn spends the novel waiting to be born. But what kind of world will he be delivered into-and "Makesicko City," as the punning narrator calls it, is not doing well in this alternate, worst-case-scenario 1992. Politicians are selling pieces of their country to the United States. A black, acid rain falls relentlessly, forewarning of the even worse ecological catastrophes to come. Gangs of children, confined to the slums, terrorize their wealthy neighbors. A great novel of ideas and a work of aesthetic boldness, Christopher Unborn is a unique, and quite funny, work from one of the twentieth century's most respected authors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781564783394
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	10/01/2005
Series:	Latin American Literature
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	531
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.56(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012) was one of the most influential and celebrated voices in Latin American literature. He was the author of 24 novels, including "Aura", "The Death of Artemio Cruz", "The Old Gringo" and "Terra Nostra", and also wrote numerous plays, short stories, and essays. He received the 1987 Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary honor.
Fuentes was born in Panama City, the son of Mexican parents, and moved to Mexico as a teenager. He served as an ambassador to England and France, and taught at universities including Harvard, Princeton, Brown and Columbia. He died in Mexico City in 2012.

Alfred MacAdam is professor of Latin American literature at Barnard College-Columbia University. He has translated works by Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Juan Carlos Onetti, Jose Donoso, and Jorge Volpi among others. He recently published an essay on the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa included in the Cambridge Companion to Autobiography".

Editorial Reviews

An omniscient fetus of a narrator, conceived to be born on the 500th anniversary of the European discovery of America, tells of a highly diminished (Yucatan has been sold to Club Mediterranee), highly polluted Mexico and, using ``nearly every stylistic device known to modern fictionists,'' observes his parents, uncles, maiden aunts, national leaders, tourists, rock musicians, and recounts outrageous incidents past and present that defy summarization. ``Though witty, erudite and incisive, Fuentes cannot overcome the storytelling obstacle he has willfully set up,'' noted PW. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly