Literature of the Americas

2541-7894 2542-243X

IWL RAS

https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2026-20-8-43

Research Article

Articles

“They Will Speak to All Mankind”: Carlos Fuentes and the Soviet Thaw

2026

In August 1963, the young Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes (1928–2012) visited the USSR; he had already gained considerable fame in the West but had not yet been published in Russian. He came at the invitation of the Soviet Writers’ Union, but he also had his own agenda: to learn about the state of the “renewed” Soviet art in light of Khrushchev’s criticism of literature at the meeting between party leaders and the intelligentsia in March 1963. To prepare material for the magazine Siempre! Fuentes received permission to interview Ilya Ehrenburg, Andrey Voznesensky, and Grigory Chukhray. His interlocutors represented not only different generations of Soviet artists but also felt themselves differently in the turbulent conditions of 1963. The Mexican writer was able to convey this in a series of interviews, which are being published in Russian for the first time. The author of the article also reconstructs the circumstances surrounding the only visit to the Soviet Union by one of the greatest writers of the Latin American “boom.” The materials reflect an important episode of mutual interest between Western and Soviet literature and therefore serve as a valuable source for studying literary connections.

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