Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | M | Midstream

Homero Aridjis's picaresque novel: a Mexican non-Jew writes about Spain's expulsion of the Jews.

Article Excerpt
1492: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUAN CABEZON OF CASTILE, Homero Aridjis. Translated from the Spanish by Betty Ferber. New York: Summit Books, 1991, 285 pp. $21.95 hardcover.

1492: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUAN CABEZON OF CASTILE, Homero Aridjis. Translated from the Spanish by Betty Ferber, with an Introduction by Ilan Stavans. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003, x + 284 pp. $14.95 paperback.

Why did the celebrated Mexican author Homero Aridjis write a novel depicting Spain's persecution, murder, and expulsion of the Jews in the years 1391 to 1492?

This internationally acclaimed contemporary Mexico Citywriter is the author of thirty-six books. His fiction, poetry, and essays have been translated into twelve languages ranging from English, French, and German, to Swedish, Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian. His distinguished roster of awards includes the Xavier Villaurrntia in Mexico, the Diana-Novedades prize for an outstanding novel in Spanish, the Italian Premio Granzane Cavour for best foreign fiction, the French Prix Roger Caillois, the Serbian Smederevo Golden Key Prize for poetry, the American John Hay Award for writing about people and nature, two Guggenheim fellowships, and chairs or residencies at New York, Columbia, and Indiana Universities and the University of California at Irvine. He is a literary leader who was elected president for two terms, from 1997 to 2003, of the world-wide organization of writers, PEN International, and was the first PEN president living in Latin America. He is, moreover, an environmental and human rights activist, who founded and leads the Circle of 100of Mexico City, a group of intellectuals, artists, and scientists whose work has brought about local as well as international environmental victories like getting the lead removed from Mexican gasoline. His environmental achievements have won him other world class awards, in addition to death threats in his country, Mexico, where writing has proved to be a dangerous profession, necessitating bodyguards in one period for himself and his family. Early in his career, he was a political figure serving as Mexican Ambassador to the Netherlands and Switzerland.

But Homero Aridjis is of Greek ancestry, his father Greek, his mother...