The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories

By Ilan Stavans and IIan Stavans

Book Overview

Hailed as one of the most important Hispanic writers of his generation, Ilan Stavans is a celebrated storyteller whose work has been translated into a dozen languages and has garnered numerous international awards. The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories contains three masterful gems. The novella, "Morirse est? en hebreo," is a thought-provoking meditation on continuity and tradition among Mexican Jews; "Xerox Man" is an intriguing story about a book thief with a bizarre theological obsession; and the title story, "The Disappearance," is the resonant tale of a Belgian actor who kidnaps himself in an attempt to respond to neo-Nazi groups. Together, these three pieces offer an unforeseen vista of Jewish-Hispanic relations and confirm Stavans' reputation as an original literary voice.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810151928
• ISBN13: 9780810151925
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Triquarterly Books
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Latin American Short Stories

Although the three pieces in this book are linked by some suspense, they are all well written. I especially liked the second Novella, which takes place during shiva, the seven days of Jewish mourning. It presented a well drawn cross section of Jewish life in Mexico.

Stavans Plumbs the Mysteries of Identity

In the preface to "The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories" (Northwestern University Press), the prolific and often provocative Ilan Stavans informs us that the "three stories in this volume are concerned, in one way or another, with silence--both earthly and divine." Hopefully Stavans will forgive those readers who discern a different thematic pattern in these well-crafted little mysteries which are -- in both tone and structure -- reminiscent of tales by Jorge Luis Borges and W. Somerset Maugham. One can argue that the heart of these stories concerns the question of identity: ethnic, religious, national and cultural. Stavans, a professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, has often explored this rocky but fascinating terrain drawn from his own experiences of being a Jew of Mexican birth who has moved within the languages of Spanish, English, Hebrew and Yiddish. Stavans is a true craftsman, a lover of language, a detective in search of what makes us similar to each other yet also unique. The stories in this slim but potent collection remind us that we belong to a complex and ultimately mysterious species for which there is no easy definition. [The full version of this review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]