Paso, Fernando del (1935–)

Fernando del Paso (b. 1 April 1935), Mexican novelist. Born in Mexico City, Paso studied economics and medicine at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He then worked in advertising and for the BBC in London from 1970 to 1984, and since then has served as cultural attaché, then consul general, to the Mexican embassy in Paris.

Although he has published two volumes of poetry and has gained recognition for his paintings and drawings of whimsical castles and creatures, Paso is best known for his three monumental novels. José Trigo (1966) uses experimental techniques to evoke a working-class neighborhood of Mexico City and the railroad workers' movement of 1958. Palinuro de México (1977) is the saga of a medical student who, swept up in the student movement of 1968, dies in the government massacre at the Plaza of Tlatelolco. Noticias del imperio (1987) is a historical novel about the French Intervention in Mexico, which imposed the Hapsburg monarchy of Maximilian and Carlota (1864–1867); much of it is narrated from the point of view of the mad empress.

Del Paso has been a member of the National College since 1996 and won several international awards prior to that, including the 1985 Best Novel Published in France Award (for Palinurus of Mexico), the 1982 Rómulo Gallegos Prize, the 1976 Mexico Novel Award and the 1966 Xavier Villaurrutia Award. In 2007 the Universidad de Guadalajara (Mexico) honored del Paso by naming its library after him.

See alsoLiterature: Spanish America .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mónica Mansour, Los mundos de Palinuro (1986).

Robbin Fiddian, "Fernando del Paso y el arte de la renovación," in Revista iberoamericana, no. 150 (January-March 1990): 143-158.

Cynthia Steele, "The Novel as Pyramid: Palinuro de México (1977), by Fernando del Paso," in her Politics, Gender, and the Mexican Novel, 1968–1988: Beyond the Pyramid (1992), pp. 66-87.

Additional Bibliography

Corral Peña, Elizabeth. Recuadros verbales: Imágenes sobre la narrativa de Fernando del Paso. México, D.F.: Desarrollo Cultural Regional, 1999.

Fiddian, Robin W. The Novels of Fernando del Paso. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000.

González, Alfonso. Voces de la posmodernidad: Seis narradores mexicanos contemporáneos. México, D.F.: Coordinación de Difusión Cultural, Dirección de Literatura/UNAM, 1998.

Paso, Fernando del. Palinure de Mexico. Paris: Seuil, 1991.

Rodríguez Lozano, Miguel G. José Trigo: El nacimiento discursivo de Fernando del Paso. Mexico, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1997.

Sáenz, Inés. Hacia la novela total: Fernando del Paso. Madrid: Editorial Pliegos, 1994.

Trejo Fuentes, Ignacio. "Fernando del Paso ante la crítica." Siempre 44, no. 2317(November 1997).

                                        Cynthia Steele