Carlos Fuentes, Mexico and Modernity.

This study of the work of the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes argues that there is a fundamental paradox at the heart of Fuentes's vision of Mexico and in his role as novelist and critic in putting forth that vision. This paradox hinges on the tension between national identity and modernity. A significant internal conflict, van Delden contends, emerges in Fuentes's work from his attempt to stake out two different positions for himself, as experimental novelist and as politicallly engaged and responsible intellectual.