Fernando del Paso died Wednesday at his home in Guadalajara. Born in Mexico City in 1935, del Paso is considered a son of the Latin American post-boom and one of the most widely recognised authors in contemporary Mexican literature, whose works recreate some of the most universal chapters in Mexican history.
In his youth, Fernando del Paso quit medical school due to his aversion to blood and guts. In 1966 he released his first novel, José Trigo, which marked him as one of the most surprising and innovative literary revelations of his generation. At that time, he’d received a scholarship from the Centro Mexicano de Escritores. From 1969 to 1971, he participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.
His second novel, Palinuro of Mexico, was awarded the prestigious Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 1982, as well as France’s Best Foreign Book Prize. Regarded as a pivotal Latin American novel, this book established del Paso as a hugely ambitious storyteller, and has been compared to Gargantua and Pantagruel and Tristram Shandy. It tells the story of Palinuro, an eternal medical student who’s failed to complete his degree for the same reason as the author, and his eccentric family. The book combines romantic lyricism with erudition and riotous eroticism.
Del Paso later spent fourteen years in London, where he worked for the BBC, and eight in Paris, where he served as cultural attaché and consul general of Mexico.
In 1987, he wrote News from the Empire, a historical novel that tells the story, to quote the author, “of a blond emperor we shot and his wife, who went crazy.” The book is about Maximilian of Habsburg, emperor of Mexico from 1864 to 1867, and his wife, Carlota. Somewhere between fiction and literary essay and masterfully narrated, News from the Empire is already a classic.
In 1992, del Paso returned to Mexico, where he became director of the Octavio Paz Ibero-American Library at the University of Guadalajara. Shortly thereafter, he entered Mexico’s prestigious Colegio Nacional.
In 2015, del Paso was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious literary award in the Spanish-speaking world, in recognition of a career that’s made an outstanding contribution to enriching the literary heritage in the Spanish language.
Del Paso also penned a fascinating essay about the history of religions, Bajo la sombra de la historia (Under History’s Shadow), in which he explores the Old Testament and the Quran with rigor, aplomb, and plenty of good humour. Regarding the content of this book, the author wrote that it “was not what I want to teach: its content is what I wanted to learn.” He also wrote a deliciously personal and scholarly book about Don Quixote, as well as a book of traditional Mexican recipes. In this case, he served as co-author and kitchen assistant, while his wife, Socorro, acted as recipe expert and master chef.
Novelist, poet, essayist, painter, and so much more, Fernando del Paso leaves behind a legacy of unperishable literary works and the indelible memory of his boundless joy and curiosity, as well as his unique ability to portray the history and soul of Mexico with colour and universality.