If I had to come up with some basic texts in political science for college freshmen, I'd probably include "The Eagle's Throne" along with its companions in amoral realism: Niccolo Machiavelli's "The Prince" and Carl von Clausewitz's "On War." It emulates them in refusing all forms of idealism and their attendant pieties. It prefers the nasty wisdom of corruption to the smiling platitudes of democracy. An example: "Corruption makes the system fluid and effective, unbothered by utopian hopes regarding justice or its lack thereof."
For all that, "The Eagle's Throne" can't be described as a cynical book so much as an unromantic one that rolls away the rock of Mexican politics and uncovers a pit of treacheries, deceits, maneuvers, stratagems, and the scurrying tarantulas of personal ambition. "The Eagle's Throne" itself is the Presidency of Mexico, a title that is roughly equivalent to our West Wing or The Oval Office.
You can find the review here
Thursday, June 29, 2006
The Eagle's Throne by Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes, a longtime critic of American imperialism and economic policies in Latin America, is best known for his 1962 novel The Death of Artemio Cruz. A lawyer and Mexican dissident, Fuentes has had a political career that runs the gamut: assistant head of the press section of Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, head of the Department of Cultural Relations and, after a period of exile in Paris, Mexican ambassador to France.
Fuentes wrote The Eagle's Throne, originally published in Spanish in 2002, after he was asked by President Bill Clinton why Mexico had no vice presidents and what would happen if the Mexican president died in office. In such a situation, the Mexican Congress appoints an acting president; but, as Fuentes shows us, there are enough contenders for the office of president -- the eagle's throne of the title -- without adding a vice president to the mix.
You can find the review here
Fuentes wrote The Eagle's Throne, originally published in Spanish in 2002, after he was asked by President Bill Clinton why Mexico had no vice presidents and what would happen if the Mexican president died in office. In such a situation, the Mexican Congress appoints an acting president; but, as Fuentes shows us, there are enough contenders for the office of president -- the eagle's throne of the title -- without adding a vice president to the mix.
You can find the review here
Kensington Gardens by Rodrigo Fresán
Some novels grab you from the first page; you begin insisting on quoting line after line to anyone who will listen. Then there are those very few novels that make you quiet, selfish even, and quoting from them begins to seem a violation of the book's wondrous delight. You feel a growing dismay as the number of pages remaining dwindles. "Kensington Gardens," the first of Argentine writer Rodrigo Fresán's 10 books to be translated into English, is one of these rare, exhilarating and hypnotic novels.
The opening lines dare you to read on: "It begins with a boy who was never a man and ends with a man who was never a boy. Something like that. Or better: it begins with a man's suicide and a boy's death, and ends with a boy's death and a man's suicide. Or with various deaths and various suicides at varying ages. I'm not sure. It doesn't matter."
You can find the review here
The opening lines dare you to read on: "It begins with a boy who was never a man and ends with a man who was never a boy. Something like that. Or better: it begins with a man's suicide and a boy's death, and ends with a boy's death and a man's suicide. Or with various deaths and various suicides at varying ages. I'm not sure. It doesn't matter."
You can find the review here
Cabot Prize Winners for Latin American Journalism Announced
Four journalists and writers were announced as winners the 2006 Maria Moors Cabot Prizes for coverage of Latin American Affairs this morning at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. The awards are given to journalists whose coverage of Latin America “demonstrated a commitment to freedom of the press and inter-American understanding”; it is the oldest international award for journalism.
This year's recipients were independent journalist/writer Mario Vargas Llosa; Ginger Thompson, the Mexico City Bureau Chief for The New York Times; Jose Hamilton Ribeiro, a special reporter for TV Globo, Brazil; and Matt Moffett, the South American correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Each winner will receive the Cabot medal and a $5,000 honorarium at a dinner ceremony at Columbia University in October.
You can find the full article here
This year's recipients were independent journalist/writer Mario Vargas Llosa; Ginger Thompson, the Mexico City Bureau Chief for The New York Times; Jose Hamilton Ribeiro, a special reporter for TV Globo, Brazil; and Matt Moffett, the South American correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Each winner will receive the Cabot medal and a $5,000 honorarium at a dinner ceremony at Columbia University in October.
You can find the full article here
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Teatro Real de Madrid to Premiere Opera Based on Juan Goytisolo Novel
Catalan painter Frederic Amat and Andalucian composer José Maria Sánchez-Verdú are collaborating on a new work that will premiere next spring at the Teatro Real de Madrid.
Europa Press reports that the opera, called Viaje a Simor ("Trip to Simor"), is inspired by the independent and dispossessed thinkers in Juan Goytisolo's 1988 novel The Virtues of the Solitary Bird. Goytisolo, a gay Spanish writer, voluntarily exiled himself from Franco's Spain in the late 1950s and still lives in Morocco.
The opera is also inspired by other works by "writers and poets who have undergone exile or torture" according to Sánchez-Verdú. The opera will use poems of St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila and the Syrian poet Adonis, among others, and each will be sung in its original language.
You can find the article here
Europa Press reports that the opera, called Viaje a Simor ("Trip to Simor"), is inspired by the independent and dispossessed thinkers in Juan Goytisolo's 1988 novel The Virtues of the Solitary Bird. Goytisolo, a gay Spanish writer, voluntarily exiled himself from Franco's Spain in the late 1950s and still lives in Morocco.
The opera is also inspired by other works by "writers and poets who have undergone exile or torture" according to Sánchez-Verdú. The opera will use poems of St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila and the Syrian poet Adonis, among others, and each will be sung in its original language.
You can find the article here
The Eagle's Throne by Carlos Fuentes
If "Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace," didn't turn you away from political science fiction forever, you might enjoy a trip to the not-too-distant future, to a country not too far away, where the political intrigues are as convoluted as one of Princess Amidala's hairdos.
Carlos Fuentes, perhaps Mexico's greatest living writer, has created a corrosive satire set in 2020. The Mexican president has angered the United States by denouncing its invasion of Colombia. In retaliation, US President Condoleezza Rice has wiped out Mexico's communication systems, cutting the country off from the rest of the world. (Even the carrier pigeons have been poisoned.)
The conceit, which involves a satellite, works best if you don't squint at it too closely. I wasted several pages wondering why the secretaries were bothering to haul out the old Remington typewriters: With the electricity still on, the computers should have worked just fine. Nor could I figure out why the phones or TVs were dead: Alexander Graham Bell's little invention, in particular, had a pretty good track record for decades before the first satellite hit outer space.
You can find the review here
Carlos Fuentes, perhaps Mexico's greatest living writer, has created a corrosive satire set in 2020. The Mexican president has angered the United States by denouncing its invasion of Colombia. In retaliation, US President Condoleezza Rice has wiped out Mexico's communication systems, cutting the country off from the rest of the world. (Even the carrier pigeons have been poisoned.)
The conceit, which involves a satellite, works best if you don't squint at it too closely. I wasted several pages wondering why the secretaries were bothering to haul out the old Remington typewriters: With the electricity still on, the computers should have worked just fine. Nor could I figure out why the phones or TVs were dead: Alexander Graham Bell's little invention, in particular, had a pretty good track record for decades before the first satellite hit outer space.
You can find the review here
Jose Saramago has cancelled his appearence at the Rome Festival delle Letterature
Nobel prize winner José Saramago has cancelled his scheduled appearance at the Rome Festival delle Letterature on 22 June due to “serious and unforeseen personal problems”. The Portuguese author was due to close the fifth edition of the literature festival, which this year has seen over a dozen writers from across the globe read from their works in the Basilica di Massenzio in Via dei Fori Imperiali. Elisabetta Rasy and Zadie Smith will perform as planned on 20 June, but American writer Gore Vidal will now end the festival on 21 June.
You can find the article here
You can find the article here
Carlos Fuentes receives the keys to L.A.
Earlier this month, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa invited Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes to his home in Hancock Park. Fuentes, the author of many novels, including "The Death of Artemio Cruz" (1962), "A Change of Skin" (1967), "The Old Gringo" (1985) and "The Eagle's Throne" (2006), was given the keys to the city. What follows is an excerpt from the speech Fuentes gave.
"Some people might think you have taken a major risk in offering the keys to the city of Los Angeles to a Mexican citizen.
Not to worry. I will use these marvelous keys judiciously. But I will use them, fear not. I will open the gates to this magnificent metropolis — Nuestra Senora de los Angeles de la Porciuncula — with confidence and generosity.
With generosity because Los Angeles means so many things. This is a city of global significance. A city sustained by Native and Afro and Anglo Americans. The meeting point of the Orient and the Americas, North and South. A city that is re-created daily by the energy of its multicultural environment.
With confidence because Los Angeles proves that California is not the slide area but the solid area of solidarity among all its cultural and racial constituencies. The city by the sea where all the peoples of the world arrive in order to recognize and share each other's values.
The City of the Angels is also the city of its citizens: confident, generous, fraternal in its conviction that we can and must all live together. Latinos and Asians, Anglo and Afro Americans, linked by the values of work and mutual respect."
You can find the article here
"Some people might think you have taken a major risk in offering the keys to the city of Los Angeles to a Mexican citizen.
Not to worry. I will use these marvelous keys judiciously. But I will use them, fear not. I will open the gates to this magnificent metropolis — Nuestra Senora de los Angeles de la Porciuncula — with confidence and generosity.
With generosity because Los Angeles means so many things. This is a city of global significance. A city sustained by Native and Afro and Anglo Americans. The meeting point of the Orient and the Americas, North and South. A city that is re-created daily by the energy of its multicultural environment.
With confidence because Los Angeles proves that California is not the slide area but the solid area of solidarity among all its cultural and racial constituencies. The city by the sea where all the peoples of the world arrive in order to recognize and share each other's values.
The City of the Angels is also the city of its citizens: confident, generous, fraternal in its conviction that we can and must all live together. Latinos and Asians, Anglo and Afro Americans, linked by the values of work and mutual respect."
You can find the article here
The Eagle's Throne by Carlos Fuentes
IN his latest novel, Carlos Fuentes flashes forward — using literary conventions of the 18th century — to construct an epistolary novel that chronicles a tumultuous Mexican future. In the 2020s, the U.S. government, headed by President Condoleezza Rice, orchestrates an embargo against Mexico that cuts off the country's access to satellites and every other form of communication technology. In the absence of telephones and the Internet, the characters of Fuentes' novel vie for the Mexican presidency, recording their affairs and political maneuverings with ink and paper and relying on hand deliveries as their only means of transmission.
The initial impression, and the one the jacket copy wants the reader to believe, is that this is a political novel. Fuentes' conceit isolates Mexico from the rest of the world and focuses on the presidential palace and the contest for the Eagle's Throne, which is what the presidential seat is called. Fuentes is primed to wax prophetic about the approaching political dystopia, critique Mexico's political corruption and lament Latin America's dependency on the United States.
You can find the review here
The initial impression, and the one the jacket copy wants the reader to believe, is that this is a political novel. Fuentes' conceit isolates Mexico from the rest of the world and focuses on the presidential palace and the contest for the Eagle's Throne, which is what the presidential seat is called. Fuentes is primed to wax prophetic about the approaching political dystopia, critique Mexico's political corruption and lament Latin America's dependency on the United States.
You can find the review here
Malinche by Laura Esquivel
Some writers learn early in their careers to find a niche, then it’s up to readers to decide if they will embrace it. Such is the case with Laura Esquivel.
She set the tone for a highly respected career in the early 1990s with her first book, “Like Water for Chocolate,” detailing a young girl’s expression of passion through cooking.
That novel sold more than 4.5 million copies worldwide, was made into a movie and earned an award from the American Booksellers Association.
Above all, “Chocolate” displayed Esquivel’s knowledge and familiarity with her native Mexico and established her comfort level with magical realism. Her new book, “Malinche,” doesn’t stray from either of those expressions.
“Malinche” is a historical novel about Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes and his translator. The story is a lyrical interpretation of their relationship during Cortes’ destruction of Montezuma’s 16th-century Mexicas empire.
Mallinalli, also called Malinche in the book, is sold into slavery as a child and later becomes Cortes’ interpreter. Cortes and Mallinalli share an intimate relationship that leads to the birth of a child and lends itself to vibrantly written scenes by Esquivel.
You can find the review here
Displaying ambition bordering on recklessness, Laura Esquivel (``Like Water for Chocolate") revisits a tale infamous in her native Mexico but little known north of the border, the story of the slave woman who accompanied Cortés as his concubine and interpreter on his bloody march of conquest across Montezuma's kingdom.
In ``Malinche," Esquivel puts imaginative flesh on the bones of legend. Her Malinalli is not a traitor but an Edenic innocent, an artist and a mystic who believes that the Spaniard Cortés is the reincarnation of the god Quetzalc ó atl, come to rescue her people from their Aztec oppressors.
You can find the review here
She set the tone for a highly respected career in the early 1990s with her first book, “Like Water for Chocolate,” detailing a young girl’s expression of passion through cooking.
That novel sold more than 4.5 million copies worldwide, was made into a movie and earned an award from the American Booksellers Association.
Above all, “Chocolate” displayed Esquivel’s knowledge and familiarity with her native Mexico and established her comfort level with magical realism. Her new book, “Malinche,” doesn’t stray from either of those expressions.
“Malinche” is a historical novel about Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes and his translator. The story is a lyrical interpretation of their relationship during Cortes’ destruction of Montezuma’s 16th-century Mexicas empire.
Mallinalli, also called Malinche in the book, is sold into slavery as a child and later becomes Cortes’ interpreter. Cortes and Mallinalli share an intimate relationship that leads to the birth of a child and lends itself to vibrantly written scenes by Esquivel.
You can find the review here
Displaying ambition bordering on recklessness, Laura Esquivel (``Like Water for Chocolate") revisits a tale infamous in her native Mexico but little known north of the border, the story of the slave woman who accompanied Cortés as his concubine and interpreter on his bloody march of conquest across Montezuma's kingdom.
In ``Malinche," Esquivel puts imaginative flesh on the bones of legend. Her Malinalli is not a traitor but an Edenic innocent, an artist and a mystic who believes that the Spaniard Cortés is the reincarnation of the god Quetzalc ó atl, come to rescue her people from their Aztec oppressors.
You can find the review here
The Heretic: A Novel of the Inquisition by Miguel Delibes
If there is one characteristic symbol that sparked the great German Protestant Reformation, it is that of Martin Luther nailing his Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church. Appalled by the conviction of purchasing God's pardon for sins, Luther's determined defense of his 95 Theses, which he was willing to debate, led to an investigation by the Roman Catholic Church. His principles were reviled and he was excommunicated in January 1521.
Readers familiar with the Protestant Reformation and the Spanish Inquisition will find the beginning and end of Miguel Delibes' novel The Heretic to their taste. The opening Prelude, set in 1557, begins the book with the title character, Cipriano Salcedo, returning from Germany. He was to meet with Luther's friend and supporter Phillip Melanchthon and other leaders of the reform church and bring back outlawed books.
What follows is not a continuation of this story. Instead, Delibes takes us back to the beginning. We follow Cipriano's birth, childhood and career before heresy and the Inquisition are mentioned again after almost 300 pages. This in-between story takes place in the Spanish city of Valladolid, where the author was born in 1920 and to which the novel is dedicated.
You can find the review here
Readers familiar with the Protestant Reformation and the Spanish Inquisition will find the beginning and end of Miguel Delibes' novel The Heretic to their taste. The opening Prelude, set in 1557, begins the book with the title character, Cipriano Salcedo, returning from Germany. He was to meet with Luther's friend and supporter Phillip Melanchthon and other leaders of the reform church and bring back outlawed books.
What follows is not a continuation of this story. Instead, Delibes takes us back to the beginning. We follow Cipriano's birth, childhood and career before heresy and the Inquisition are mentioned again after almost 300 pages. This in-between story takes place in the Spanish city of Valladolid, where the author was born in 1920 and to which the novel is dedicated.
You can find the review here
Sergio Pitol translated to Chinese
Outstanding Mexican writer Sergio Pitol, 2005 Cervantes Literature Prize winner, is in Beijing to present two of his works translated into Chinese.
During his two-week stay in China, the prestigious writer will launch the Chinese versions of his novels "La vida Conyugal" (Married Life, 1991) and "El arte de la Fuga" (The Art of Escape, 1996), and attend related cultural events.
Pitol, also winner of the 1999 Juan Rulfo Prize, told Prensa Latina, that apart from the two novels launching here, Chinese publishers plan to translate and print a series of his literary works.
You can find the article here
During his two-week stay in China, the prestigious writer will launch the Chinese versions of his novels "La vida Conyugal" (Married Life, 1991) and "El arte de la Fuga" (The Art of Escape, 1996), and attend related cultural events.
Pitol, also winner of the 1999 Juan Rulfo Prize, told Prensa Latina, that apart from the two novels launching here, Chinese publishers plan to translate and print a series of his literary works.
You can find the article here
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