The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories [Hardcover]

Ilan Stavans (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2006

Hailed as one of the most important Hispanic writers of his generation, Ilan Stavans is mostly known for his penetrating essays on culture. He is also 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 small, masterful gems. The novella "Morirse está en hebreo," is a thought-provoking meditation on continuity and tradition among Mexican Jews that takes place just as a decades-long one-party dictatorship is crumbling down The volume also features "Xerox Man," an intriguing story about a book thief with a bizarre theological obsession, which was commissioned and broadcast by the BBC and has been widely anthologized. 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 a lyrical, daring, and original literary voice.The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories contains three small, masterful gems. The novella "Morirse está en hebreo," is a thought-provoking meditation on continuity and tradition among Mexican Jews that takes place just as a decades-long one-party dictatorship is crumbling down It is the basis for a critically-acclaimed Mexican feature film that will be released in the United States in late 2006. The volume also features "Xerox Man," an intriguing story about a book thief with a bizarre theological obsession, which was commissioned and broadcast by the BBC and has been widely anthologized. 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 a lyrical, daring, and original literary voice.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Distinguished Latin American author and scholar Stavans (Dictionary Days; Spanglish) explores the Diaspora of Jewish Mexico in this slight but thoughtful collection. The title story concerns the obituary of Belgian actor Maarten Soëtendrop, who gained notoriety some years before by orchestrating his fake Fascist Youth League kidnapping. The narrator comes upon Soëtendrop's obituary by way of his childhood friend Yosee, now a lawyer specializing in Holocaust reparation cases, and whose obsession with the actor boils down to his theory of the Jew's chronic instability in exile. The novella, Morirse esta en hebreo, takes place during a week of sitting shivah at the home of Moishe Tartakovsky, a prominent Mexico City businessman, while a heated presidential election rages outside. Through the different sides of Moishe that emerge from his relatives' idle, grieving comments, the author suggests the Jew is an actor in a strange land—indecipherable and contradictory. "Xerox Man" traces the crimes of Reuben Staflovitch, a fanatical Argentinean Orthodox Jew who believes he can unleash divine chaos in New York City by destroying ancient documents after photocopying them. These provocative stories read almost like newspaper dispatches, conveying facts and stopping short of analysis. Fans of Stavans's expansive body of work won't be disappointed. (Aug.)
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Review

"One of the most influential figures in Latino literature in the United States." --The New York Times

"Ilan Stavans is an intellectual force to reckon with." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Ilan Stavans beautifully demonstrates that the best way to suggest the extraordinary is through the ordinary." --The Boston Globe

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Triquarterly; 1 edition (September 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810123746
• ISBN-13: 978-0810123748
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,613,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stavans Plumbs the Mysteries of Identity, October 13, 2006

By 

Daniel Olivas (West Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories (Hardcover)

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.]

5.0 out of 5 stars Latin American Short Stories, May 19, 2008

By 

Stephanie B. Cohen "Buenos Aires Girl" (Newton, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories (Latino Voices/Vidas) (Paperback)

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.