Biography Essay

Born in Panama City on 11 November 1928, under the astrological sign of Scorpio, as he is fond of mentioning, Carlos Fuentes, one of Mexico's premier novelists, is the son of Rafael Fuentes Boettiger, a career diplomat and at the time attache to the Mexican legation in Panama, and the former Berta Macias Rivas. The young Fuentes spent much of his childhood in the capital cities of Latin America, including Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro, where his father was secretary to the Mexican ambassador to Brazil—the distinguished poet and essayist Alfonso Reyes, who later became Fuentes's literary mentor. From 1934 to 1940 Fuentes attended the Henry D. Cooke public school in Washington, D.C., where his father was counselor to the Mexican Embassy, and where his sister Berta was born. In contrast with this international experience, a decisive occurrence, which led to his recognizing himself as Mexican, was...