The old gringo

Carlos Fuentes

Book - 2007

One of Carlos Fuentes's greatest works, The Old Gringo tells the story of Ambrose Bierce, the American author, soldier, and journalist, and of his last mysterious days in maxico living amoung Pancho villa's soldiers - particularly his encounter with one of Villa's generals, Tomas Arroyo, as well as with a spirited young american woman named Harriet Winslow. In the end, the incompatibility between Mexico and the United States (or paradoxically, their intimacy) cklaims both bierce and Aroyo, in a novel that is, most of all, about the tragic history of these two cultures in conflict.