The possibility of being as free with the camera as we are with the pen is a fantastic prospect for the creative life of the 21st century.
Carlos FuentesRead
I always felt a little worm inside me: 'Now you need to write a novel with a woman protagonist.'
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the internal urging of a writer to pursue their creative aspirations, particularly in representing diverse narratives.
In this quote, Carlos Fuentes expresses a personal struggle and motivation as a writer, feeling an internal compulsion to create a novel featuring a woman as the central character. This underscores the importance of representation in literature and highlights how writers often feel driven to explore voices and experiences that resonate differently from their own.
Themes
WritingNovelProtagonistWomenCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, a participant could use this quote to inspire discussions on female representation in literature.
More from Carlos Fuentes
All quotes βWriting is a struggle against silence.
Carlos FuentesRead
Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.
Carlos FuentesRead
One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.
Carlos FuentesRead
No, it's not that they're bad. It's that they're obliged to pretend they're good. They've been brought up to deceive and be cunning, to protect themselves from our society. I don't want to be like that.
Carlos FuentesRead
You have an absolute freedom in Mexican writing today in which you don't necessarily have to deal with the Mexican identity. You know why? Because we have an identity... We know who we are. We know what it means to be a Mexican.
Carlos FuentesRead
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Ultimately, my books are not about the politics, although the toil and the struggle and the wars in Afghanistan have a significant impact on the lives of my characters.
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I can tell you that as a writer and as a reader, I regard character as king. Or queen. No matter how riveting the action or interesting the plot twists, if I don't feel like I'm meeting someone who feels real, I'm not going to be compelled to read further.
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Novelists, it seems to me, are the very last people who should be asked to comment on the news of the day, and sooner or later, when they have been pilloried for their views, most of them recognise this.
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By God, if women had written stories, As clerks had within here oratories, They would have written of men more wickedness Than all the mark of Adam may redress.
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I believe that all novels, ... deal with character, and that it is to express character β not to preach doctrines, sing songs, or celebrate the glories of the British Empire, that the form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose, and undramatic, so rich, elastic, and alive, has been evolved ... The great novelists have brought us to see whatever they wish us to see through some character. Otherwise they would not be novelists, but poet, historians, or pamphleteers.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead