Description:
The first English translation of the picaresque novel by the Mexican author of El Periquillo Sarniento (The Itching Parrot). The main character is a rake, catrín (a dandy or fop), and criollo. The novel interrogates race and caste and political and social conditions in Latin America around 1810.
Review Quotes:
"[A] high-quality translation that will entertain and instruct students of history, literature and colonial studies at the high school and college level. They will enjoy meandering with Don Catrín through the streets and plazas of colonial Mexico and appreciate Lizardi's considerable storytelling talent, as well as why he is considered one of the first great Mexican novelists." --Hispania
"The work offers a complex portrait of negotiated identities, and, despite its ending on a moralizing note, a modern audience will find it delightfully subversive."--Kelly Washbourne, Kent State University
"This highly readable translation is sure to become a required text in surveys of Latin American or hemispheric American literature in translation and in first-year seminars on literary and cultural studies topics."--Ronald Briggs, Barnard College