Carlos Fuentes was an award-winning Mexican novelist, essayist, and diplomat. He was one of the leading names of the Latin American Boom of the 1960s and 1970s, and he won many prestigious awards and honours through his career, including France’s National Order of Merit, Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award for literature, and the Miguel de Cervantes Prize. His work includes The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962), Terra Nostra (1975) and The Old Gringo (1985). He was a diplomat as well as a writer, and he served as Mexican Ambassador to France. He was a staunch supporter of justice and human rights. As writer as well as diplomat, he greatly contributed to Mexican literary and humanistic traditions.