SOURCE: "Betrayed by the Revolution," in New York Times Book Review, August 11, 1996, p. 14.

In the following review, Canby provides a mixed assessment of A New Time for Mexico.

Carlos Fuentes is many things: a diplomat and self-described "transopolitan" who wears Savile Row suits and didn't live in Mexico until he was 16; a "leftist" who was banned from entry into the United States under the McCarran-Walter Act during the 1960's but who, inside Mexico, is regularly derided for his gringo mentality; an accomplished novelist who is perennially nominated for the Nobel Prize; and, finally, an interpreter of Mexico to the United States and of the United States to Mexico. A New Time for Mexico, Mr. Fuentes's latest collection of essays, reveals the author in interpreter mode, and even though it contains several chapters that leave the impression of having been included only to pad out a thin manuscript, it...