International Don Quixote

Book excerpt: Ever since its appearance, Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote has exerted a powerful influence on the artistic imagination all around the world. This cross-cultural volume offers important new readings of canonical reinterpretations of the Quixote: from Unamuno to Borges, from Ortega y Gasset to Calvino, from Mark Twain to Carlos Fuentes. But to the prestigious list of well-known authors who acknowledged Cervantes' influence, it also adds new and surprising names, such as that of Subcomandante Marcos, who gives a Cervantine twist to his Mexican Zapatista revolution. Attention is paid to successful contemporary authors such as Paul Auster and Ricardo Piglia, as well as to the forgotten voice of the Belgian writer Joseph Grandgagnage. The volume breaks new ground by taking into consideration Belgian music and Dutch translations, as well as Cervantine procedures in Terry Gilliam's Lost in La Mancha. In all, this book constitutes an indispensable guide for the further study of the Quixote's Nachleben and offers exciting proposals for rereading Cervantes.