1492 (Jewish Latin America Series)

"1492: The Life and Times of Juan Cabezon of Castile" -- (Jewish Latin America Series) Paperback – by Homero Aridjis (Author), Betty Ferber (Translator), Ilan Stavans (Introduction). Now in English for the first time, this sweeping story of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain during the era of world exploration was a best-seller in Latin America in the 1980s.

[From Publishers Weekly]: 'Ambitious re-creation of a historical period overwhelms this Mexican author's love story about two conversos --converted Sephardic Jews--who are devastated by the Spanish Inquisition . Under fanatical persecution by Dominican friars, the conversos have been sequestered in ghettos, and robbed, tortured and murdered. In 1492, however, they are allowed to emigrate to Portugal. The narrator, Juan Cabezon, himself a converso , joins up with a blind man, Pero Menique, who introduces him to a group of merry rogues: a violent thief, a lascivious prostitute and a dwarf, all of whom reappear throughout the novel in different guises. Juan hides two of Pero Menique's converso friends, one of whom, Isabel de la Vega, falls in love with Juan and becomes pregnant with his child; Arijdis's depiction of their romance is exquisitely handled. But when a Dominican inquisitor is murdered, Isabel, fearing renewed persecution, vanishes. Juan's anguished search for her takes him across a Spain rocked by civil unrest. After a brief reunion, Juan decides that his destiny lies with a man met during his journey, an explorer named Cristobal Colon, and he enlists as a sailor on the Santa Maria. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. / From Library Journal.

'Aridjis, a popular Mexican poet, and his translator wife provide English-speaking audiences an English version of his 1985 novel of a picaresque love story between two conversos (converts to Christianity) set in the waning years of 15th-century Spain. Although Christopher Columbus appears briefly as a deus ex machina who saves the hero from the clutches of the Inquisition, the book really focuses on another major event of 1492--the expulsion of the Jews. As a fictionalized account of the persecution of the Jews and a portrayal of the intolerance of religious fanaticism, the work conjures up images of pogroms, Salem witch hunts, and the Holocaust. The good translation, unfortunately marred by an anemic style, is recommended only for strong historical fiction or Judaica collections. - Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC, Dublin, Ohio (1991).

'A best seller in Latin America in the 1980s, this novel of life in fifteenth-century Spain depicts a world in which both the Moors and the Jews are under attack. This is the formative period of the phenomenon known today as Crypto-Judaism, and Aridjis’s widely praised book, now available for the first time in an American paperback edition, will find a broad audience among readers fascinated by this aspect of Jewish history'.

“In 1492, the Catholic rulers, Ferdinand and Isabella, expelled the Jews from Spain. In Homero Aridjis’ novel, the great saga of the expulsion comes to life with both historical and poetic resonance. A great Mexican poet, Aridjis embraces history and fiction with the warmth and insight of the lyrical vision.”—Carlos Fuentes

“In this highly readable novel which deals with a special and painful chapter in history, Homero Aridjis combines erudition, sensitivity and poetic imagination. I recommend it warmly.”—Elie Wiesel

“A novel of literary subtlety and sensibility. Few contemporary writers have captured so profoundly and with such style this era marked by three essential events: the establishment of the Catholic sovereigns, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and the discovery of America.”—El País (Madrid)

“Among worldwide bestsellers, 1492 is the most similar to Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose; both are concerned with the trials of heretics and the violence employed against the dissident. Aridjis gives an encyclopedic vision of catastrophic times.”—La Jornada (Mexico City)

[About the Author]: Homero Aridjis, one of Mexico’s foremost poets and novelists, has published more than twenty books, most recently a collection with New Directions. He lives in Mexico City. Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. Series editor of Jewish Latin America, he is also the author of The One-Handed Pianist and Other Stories, Art and Anger, (UNM Press), and many other books.


História / Crônicas / Artes / Aventura / Sociologia / Romance / Literatura Estrangeira / Religião e Espiritualidade