In a series of inspired meditations and polemics, Fuentes explores and celebrates subjects as disparate as 'Balzac' and 'Beauty'; 'Reading' and 'Revolution'; 'Sex' and 'Shakespeare'. The essays are woven together with the familiar Fuentes themes of politics, time and language; and through them runs the vein of his personal journey, his views on love, sex, women, friendship and family. In 'Children' Fuentes tells of the births of his daughters and gives a wrenching account of his son's short life; 'Silvia' is a paean to his wife. This I Believe is both intimate and universally resonant, and it leads us through a mind - via Kafka, Bunuel, Wittgenstein, Cervantes, Faulkner, Velazquez, and more - that is both witty and profoundly searching. Finally, in 'Zurich', an encounter with Thomas Mann teaches him (as Fuentes teaches us) that 'in literature, you only know what you can imagine'.