Fuentes, Carlos

New York. 1968. Farrar Straus Giroux. 1st American Printing. Very Good. No Dustjacket. Translated from the Spanish by Sam Hileman. 462 pages. hardcover. . keywords: Literature Translated Mexico Latin America . FROM THE PUBLISHER - On Palm Sunday, four persons decide to drive from Mexico City to Veracruz for Semana Santa-Holy Week. On the way they stop over at Cholula, the pantheon city of the Aztecs, where Cortez betrayed and massacred the Indians. The driver of the car is Franz, an expatriate Sudeten German who• was once in the service of the Nazis. With him is Isabel, his lover, a Mexican ‘pussycat,' a hipster always in search of some new ‘kick.' The other two members of the party are Javier and his wife Elizabeth. In his youth Javier published ‘a fine, sensitive book of poetry.' He was awarded a fellowship to New York, and has done nothing since. Now in his forties, he is a talented failure. Elizabeth is an embittered woman whose love for Javier is not returned. A fifth person is present when this diverse group reaches the pyramids of Cholula: the Narrator, who tells the story. The Narrator is ironical, humorous, serious, joking; he mixes truth and lies, fact and fiction. Through his eyes we see that the four others have one thing in common; they are in search of some real value: love in the case of Elizabeth, creation for Javier, experience for Isabel, redemption for Franz. In March, 1967, A CHANGE OF SKIN was awarded the Biblioteca Breve Prize given by the distinguished Spanish publishing house of Seix Barral. inventory #17490