List of Books by Carlos Fuentes. See all books authored by Carlos Fuentes

About Carlos Fuentes

Fuentes was born in Panama City, the son of Berta Macías and Rafael Fuentes, the latter of whom was a Mexican diplomat. As the family moved for his father's career, Fuentes spent his childhood in various Latin American capital cities,[3] an experience he later described as giving him the ability to view Latin America as a critical outsider. From 1934 to 1940, Fuentes' father was posted to the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C.,where Carlos attended English-language school, eventually becoming fluent.He also began to write during this time, creating his own magazine, which he shared with apartments on his block.

In 1938, Mexico nationalized foreign oil holdings, leading to a national outcry in the U.S.; he later pointed to the event as the moment in which he began to understand himself as Mexican. In 1940, the Fuentes family was transferred to Santiago, Chile. There, he first became interested in socialism, which would become one of his lifelong passions, in part through his interest in the poetry of Pablo Neruda.[9] He lived in Mexico for the first time at the age of 16, when he went to study law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City with an eye toward a diplomatic career. During this time, he also began working at the daily newspaper Hoy and writing short stories.He later attended the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.