Briefly

I have started several (two) books that I have not yet finished. A pile of unread magazines mounts. Which is to say that I have a new job. And that I have still to figure out how to make the hours I have free, work.

At my new job, there is a man who works by day as an advocate for undocumented immigrants. During my first week of work we somehow fell into a conversation and discovered a shared love for fiction. He has collected obscure books by female Mexican novelists since the 1960s. I imagine that collection to be towering, secret, and unmatched. My Spanish isn’t robust enough to make borrowing a book worthwhile. However, my new friend mentioned that I might have better luck reading a translation of one of his favorite novelists of all time, Carlos Fuentes. I told him I hadn’t yet read anything by Fuentes but I was looking forward to it. Three weeks later, Fuentes passed away.

I found this interview in the Paris Review, between Fuentes and his translator, published in 1981. I learned that Fuentes was a diplomat, a lawyer, and always, a writer.