The Death of Artemio Cruz

Fuentes used interior monologue, temporal jumps, and second-person narration to tell the agony of a man who symbolises post-revolutionary Mexico: the opportunist who betrayed his ideals to prosper. It is a difficult book to enter — the form can be jarring — but once the game is accepted, the portrait is devastating. One of the central texts of the Latin American boom and of the debate on Mexican national identity.