Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Where the Air is Clear | 1958 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 2 | The Good Conscience | 1959 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 3 | Aura | 1962 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 4 | The Death of Artemio Cruz | 1962 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 5 | A Change of Skin | 1967 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 6 | Terra Nostra | 1975 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 7 | The Hydra Head | 1978 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 8 | Distant Relations | 1980 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 9 | The Old Gringo | 1985 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 10 | Christopher Unborn | 1986 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 11 | The Campaign | 1991 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 12 | The Orange Tree | 1993 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 13 | Diana | 1994 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 14 | The Crystal Frontier | 1995 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 15 | The Years with Laura Diaz | 1999 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 16 | Inez | 2000 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 17 | The Eagle’s Throne | 2002 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 18 | Vlad | 2004 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 19 | Happy Families | 2006 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 20 | Destiny and Desire | 2008 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
| 21 | Adam in Eden | 2009 | Carlos Fuentes | Buy |
Carlos Fuentes’s standalone novels span more than fifty years and represent one of the most significant bodies of work in Latin American fiction. His debut, Where the Air is Clear (1958), is a sprawling portrait of Mexico City that introduced many of the themes he would return to throughout his career: class conflict, historical memory, and the question of Mexican national identity.
The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962) tells the story of a dying Mexican revolutionary through shifting points of view and fractured chronology. Terra Nostra (1975) is an immense, encyclopedic novel that spans the history of the Spanish-speaking world. The Old Gringo (1985), based loosely on the disappearance of American writer Ambrose Bierce during the Mexican Revolution, was his biggest commercial success in the United States. Later novels like The Years with Laura Diaz and Destiny and Desire continued to explore Mexican history through fiction, though with a somewhat more accessible style than his earlier experimental works.