The Old Gringo

by Carlos Fuentes, Margaret Sayers Peden (Translator)

Overview

One of Carlos Fuentes's greatest works, The Old Gringo tells the story of Ambrose Bierce, the American writer, soldier, and journalist, and of his last mysterious days in Mexico living among Pancho Villa's soldiers, particularly his encounter with General Tomas Arroyo. In the end, the incompatibility of the two countries (or, paradoxically, their intimacy) claims both men, in a novel that is, most of all, about the tragic history of two cultures in conflict.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374530525
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	02/20/2007
Series:	FSG Classics
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.60(d)

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.

Editorial Reviews

A dazzling novel that possesses the weight and resonance of myth [and] the fierce magic of a remembered dream.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A perfect little gemstone, faceted by a master craftsman.” —Charles Larsen, Chicago Tribune Book World

“The fate of Bierce has intrigued Americans since 1914, when he vanished . . . Fuentes has spun an opalescent around the mystery.” —Evan S. Connell, Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher

The genius of ''The Old Gringo'' is the choice of a character as rich as Ambrose Bierce, who is at the center of a famous mystery....The novel has the magical form invented by the Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo and carried on by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Mr. Fuentes and others. In this form, roles change, characters exist and speak in more than one frame of time on the same page, dream and reality are interchangeable, inconsistencies abound and lead to revelations....The only serious flaw for me is that the book may be too concise; I wished for details to more fully realize the characters, to limit them less by their symbolic roles. Perhaps that would have obscured the depth of the novel; I don't know; the book is a siege of echoes, it goes by in a moment, and that is enough. -- New York Times

Earl Shorris