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Carlos Fuentes: 11 Little Known Facts About The Legendary Mexican Author

Posted: Updated: 05/16/2012 5:42 pm

Some relatively unknown details about the life of Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, who died this Tuesday, May 15th. If you know more of those, let us know in your comments!


He was born in Panama, to Mexican parents (on both sides)

He always supported Fidel Castro and the cause of the Cuban revolution.
Instead of driving a car he liked to take taxis so he could talk to people about his books.
He was several times candidate to the Literature Nobel Prize but never won.
He was the screenwriter of several films and worked with the Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez.
Garcia Marquez would send him letters asking for his opinion on the idea of ​​a book he was working on The book was One Hundred Years of Solitude.
He was a personal friend of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
He had strong disagreements with legendary Mexican actress Maria Felix and the writer and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz.
As ambassador to France he resigned when former Mexican President Diaz Ordaz, was nominated ambassador in Spain to protest the 1968 massacre of Tlatelolco for which Dias Ordaz was responsible.
He will be buried in Paris, France, near his children Carlos and Natasha.
In the same cemetery of Montparnasse are his friend Julio Cortazar, as well as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Samuel Beckett.


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Some relatively unknown details about the life of Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, who died this Tuesday, May 15th. If you know more of those, let us know in your comments! He was born in Panama, t...
Some relatively unknown details about the life of Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, who died this Tuesday, May 15th. If you know more of those, let us know in your comments! He was born in Panama, t...
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12:12 PM on 05/19/2012
He was fluent in English and French
03:24 PM on 05/17/2012
Mr. Fuentes came to DENOUNCE Fidel Castro in the 1970s after a prominent Cuban author was jailed, so that fact is completely incorrect. Please stop spreading this disinformation and do correct this posting as soon as possible.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Humberto Capiro
10:29 PM on 05/16/2012
YOU NEED TO DO A LITTLE MORE FACT CHECKING! CARLOS FUENTES DID NOT "ALWAYS" SUPPORT FIDEL CASTRO!!

N.Y. TIMES: Carlos Fuentes, Mexican Man of Letters, Dies at 83 - By ANTHONY DePALMA

Mr. Fuentes was more ideological than political. He tended to embrace justice and basic human rights regardless of political labels. He supported Fidel Castro’s revolution in Cuba, but turned against it as Mr. Castro became increasingly authoritarian. He sympathized with Indian rebels in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas and skewered the administration of George W. Bush over its antiterrorism tactics and immigration policies, calling them unduly harsh.

He was also critical of Venezuela’s leftist leader, Hugo Chávez, however, calling him a “tropical Mussolini,” and of his own country’s failure to stem its rampant drug violence. On the day he died the newspaper Reforma published a hopeful essay by him on the change of power in France.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/books/carlos-fuentes-mexican-novelist-dies-at-83.html
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Rob Paterson1
01:16 AM on 05/17/2012
like always huff-post is wrong once again.
09:48 AM on 05/17/2012
Thanks for the fact check. Journalism, the vanguard of justice and protector of democracy, is in a poor state of disrepair.