A Change of Skin explained
| A Change of Skin |
| Author: | Carlos Fuentes |
| Title Orig: | Cambio de piel |
| Orig Lang Code: | es |
| Translator: | Sam Hileman |
| Country: | Mexico |
| Language: | Spanish |
| Genre: | Romance |
| Published: | |
| Media Type: | Print |
| Pages: | 442 (first edition)[2] |
| Oclc: | 349483 |
| Dewey: | 863 |
| Congress: | PQ7297.F793 C28 |
A Change of Skin (Spanish: Cambio de piel) is a 1967 novel written by Carlos Fuentes about a Mexican writer and his Jewish American wife.
Plot
This is the story about a frustrated Mexican writer named Javier, and his Jewish American wife, Elizabeth.[3] The couple is making their way from Mexico City to Veracruz for a vacation. A man named Franz (a Czechoslovakian who helped construct the Nazi concentration camp, Theresienstadt and thereafter fled to Mexico) is with them, along with his young Mexican mistress, Isabel.
Once the two couples have left Mexico, they visit the pre-Columbian ruins at Xochicalco and then the pyramids at Cholula. Their car is sabotaged, forcing them to spend the night in Cholula. There they are joined by the ubiquitous Narrator, who is also en route to Cholula, just to complicate matters even more.
Acclaim for the book
- "At any rate, politically objectionable or not, Fuentes has written a challenging and interesting, if occasionally silly and pretentious, book." -David Gallagher, The New York Times[4]
- "defines existentially a collective Mexican consciousness by exploring and reinterpreting the country’s myths." -Encyclopædia Britannica[5]
- "...human history is envisioned as an obsessively repeated mythic drama or cycle." -Edith Grossman, "Myth and Madness in Carlos Fuentes' 'A Change of Skin'"[6]
- It received the 1967 Premio Biblioteca Breve for best unpublished novel.[7]
Notes and References
- Web site: Cambio de piel. Open Library. 9 July 2014. 3 December 2010.
- Book: Cambio de piel. . Library of Congress Online Catalog . Novelistas contemporáneos . 1967 . Library of Congress . 9 July 2014 .
- Web site: A Change of Skin. Enotes. 8 July 2014.
- News: Gallagher. David. Stifled Tiger. 8 July 2014. The New York Times. 24 February 1968.
- Web site: A Change of Skin. Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 July 2014.
- Grossman. Edith. Myth and Madness in Carlos Fuentes' "A Change of Skin". Latin American Literary Review. 1974. 3. 5. 99–112. 20118943.
- News: El nuevo Premio Formentor, para Carlos Fuentes . The New Formentor Award, for Carlos Fuentes . Javier . Rodríguez Marcos . . Madrid . Spanish . 3 August 2011 . 5 September 2018.
