"Ilan Stavans is a prodigious reader and listener, and . . . his essay collection-lively and intelligent, eclectic, sharp-tongued yet fair-minded-is a marvelous survey of cultural matters that most of us imagined that we knew about but really didn't." -Peter Matthiessen "Ilan Stavans . . . has the sharp eye of the internal exile. . . . this book examines the conflicts and contradictions of that frontier where Kafka meets NAFTA." -John Sayles, author of Los Gusanos and director of "Lone Star" "This volume by Ilan Stavans . . . is a display of absolute devotion and passion. It evinces a singular mastery of the craft of the essay and reaches unexpected levels of depth." -Alvaro Mutis "Stavans opens to the reader the doors of a world (or several worlds). He is not only a keen essayist, he is also an excellent fiction writer, as demonstrated by the short stories in this volume. In short: Ilan Stavans gives us a comprehensive and affectionate panel of human and intellectualprofiles of our times." -Moacyr Scliar "Ilan Stavans is the rarest of North American writers-he sees the Americas whole. Not since Octavio Paz has Mexico given us an intellectual so able to violate borders, with learning and grace." -Richard Rodriguez "Ilan Stavans may be our most savvy reader. The 'we' in that sentence provides a space in which many groups can truly identify. He is a brilliant participant and reader of Mexican, Latin and South American literature and culture." -Sander L. Gilman, The University of Chicago "Stavans is bold, engaging, refreshingly agile as narrator and essayist, and this book is a most impressive accomplishment. . . . Latino arts will embrace Stavans' challenge of irony and multiple identities." -Doris Sommer, Harvard University Ilan Stavans is one of the foremost Latino scholars, and here his best essays are collected into one volume. From Selena and Subcomandante Marcos to Cisneros and Paz, these beautifully written piecesexplore the breadth of contemporary Latino-American culture, depicting and analyzing what he calls 'life in the hyphen'. As a Mexican Jew whose native languages are Yiddish and Spanish, Stavans writes in English to limn the tensions, contradictions, and possibilities within the complex notion of a multi-cultural identity.
Industry Reviews
..."the range of essays, the literary criticism and, indeed, the short storeis in [this] volume should convince the reader that [Stavans] has acquired eyes that can look everywhere, see everything and, more importantly, unravel what they have perceived.."
-Jewish Quarterly, Moris Farhi
"[The Essetial Ilan Stavans is] to be savoured, to be dipped into time and again and each time to be surprised happily that there is always something new in each of them.."
-Jewish Quarterly, Moris Farhi
"This engrossing collection of essays from scholar Stavans targets Latino American identity, politics, popular culture, Spanglish, and the intimate relationships among memory, translation, and literature. Spanning the last six years, the essays encompass astute cultural analyses of Latin American politics and its leaders-from Mexico's Subcommandante Marcos to Peru's Abimael Guzman of the Maoist Shining Path-and display a sensitive, if at times romantic, look at the historical, cultural, and linguistic nuances that brand "life in the hyphen." Stavans's studies of the oeuvres of varied male writers, such as Walter Benjamin, Octavio Paz, Lionel Trilling, and Elias Canetti, enhance the author's exploration of his own Jewish-American roots and illuminate a deeper understanding of the complex nature of identity and the effect of life on literature.."
-"Library Journal
"These reflections where the "you and "yo, Anglo and Spanglo, are joined in the richness of one Latino intellectual and artistic tradition make for stimulating reading. Positive, exaltant, anti-provincial, and inspiring, Stavans gives the reader the opportunity to celebrate the creation of a new Latino self in which we are notone but many, and the border becomes our 'dream catcher, ' the magic web which permits us to re-invent the future."
-Rosario Ferre, author of "The House on the Lagoon and "Eccentric Neighborhoods
"Ilan Stavans may be our most savvy reader. The 'we' in that sentence provides a space in which many groups can truly identify. He is a brilliant participant and reader of Mexican, Latin and South American literature and culture. He is an incisive and critical voice in and of the Jewish world in Hispanic America. He is one of the best the critics and interviewers in the North American, Anglophone world. An Ilan Stavans reader-something for everyone and something of true quality."
-Sander L. Gilman, The University of Chicago
