Where the Air Is Clear

Where the Air Is Clear (Spanish: La región más transparente) is a 1958 novel by Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes.

His first novel, it became an "instant classic"[1] and made Fuentes into an immediate "literary sensation".

[2] The novel's success allowed Fuentes to leave his job as a diplomat and become a full-time author.

[2] The novel is built around the story of Federico Robles – who has abandoned his revolutionary ideals to become a powerful financier – but also offers "a kaleidoscopic presentation" of vignettes of Mexico City, making it as much a "biography of the city" as of an individual man.

[3] It was celebrated not only for its prose, which made heavy use of interior monologue and explorations of the subconscious,[2] but also for its "stark portrait of inequality and moral corruption in modern Mexico".