'Ilan Stavans has accomplished a difficult task: to be both extensive and intensive in his quest for the truth and mystery which surround Christopher Columbus. The exploration through wide studies of myth, history, and literature is as exciting as it is authoritative.' - Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, The University of Texas at Austin 'A strikingly original and extraordinarily informative ... Read moreaccount of Columbus's travels from the New World to the book world. Highly recommended.' - Gustavo Perez Firmat, author of Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way 'In this highly original book, Ilan Stavans takes a postmodern look at Christopher Columbus by seeing him as a plural entity in continuous shift. There is not one Columbus-not even two Columbuses, the savior and the offender-but many of them, which are the product of worldwide ideological manipulation and literary imagination. Thoroughly researched and easy to read, Imagining Columbus is one of the most interesting books commemorating the European and American encounter.' - Antonio Benitez-Rojo, author of The Repeating Island 'Washington Irving invented Columbus for the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Ilan Stavans has reinvented him for our fin de siécle-and perhaps for the following centuries.' - José Emilio Pacheco, author of You Will Die in a Distant Land Show Less