Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His latest book is On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (Viking; due out in
paperback from Penguin in summer 2002). A selection of his writings is available as The Essential Ilan Stavans (2000, Routledge). His latest books are The Poetry
of Pablo Neruda (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and Spanglish: The
Making of a New American Language (HarperCollins), forthcoming in
August and September, respectively.
"Felisberto Hernández is a writer like no other," Italo Calvino announced once, "like no European, nor any Latin American.
Immigrants and traffickers are the subjects of a certain style of Mexican music.
After his death in 1975 at the age of 70, Lionel Trilling underwent something of an eclipse.