ABSTRACT
Carlos Fuentes, novelist, journalist, playwright, and essayist, was born in Panama City on November 11, 1928 from Mexican parents. Rafael Fuentes Boettiger, his father, was a diplomat who introduced his son to an international environment at a very early age. This cosmopolitan upbringing left a deep mark on the Mexican writer, who lived in the United States, Chile, and Argentina. Fuentes studied law in the Universidad Autónoma de México and economics at the Institut des Hautes Études internationales (Switzerland). Besides writing, he held important positions as head assistant of the press section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Mexican Ambassador in France from 1974 to 1977. His recurrent topics as an author are the power of fantasy, the paradox of Mexican identity, and the role of revolution in the foundations of modern Mexico. He was selected as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for literature many times. He died on May 15, 2012.
