_________________________‘This collection examines the people, places and ideas that have shaped Fuentes's life ... stimulating and provoking' - Sunday Times‘A characteristically dazzling display of Fuentes' erudition and of a remarkable life ... The book defies categorization ... There are flashes of his soul' - Financial Times‘Magnificent ... an essay on children made me weep as I read it ... he is a marvellous novelist' - Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph_________________________Carlos Fuentes is Mexico's most admired novelist, and this is his manifesto, and memoir, offering a rare and wonderful insight into the mind of a great writer. This I Believe is an A to Z of the things that he loves and believes in. In a series of inspired meditations and polemics, he embraces his subjects from ‘Balzac' and ‘Beauty' to ‘Sex' and ‘Shakespeare'. The essays are woven together with the familiar Fuentes themes of politics, time and language, and through them runs the vein of his personal journey, his views on love, sex, women, friendship and family. From ‘Amor' to ‘Zürich', this is a collection of thoughts that is both witty and profoundly searching. _________________________‘Fuentes certainly dazzles; he cites aptly, and scatters one-liners. As you read him, you sense genuine mental alertness and snappy judgements. There's a touch of the guru in this latest book, revealing our world to us' - Independent