Mestizo: A Novel (Jewish Latin America series) - Hardcover

Feierstein, Ricardo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826321151 ISBN 13: 9780826321152

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press, 2000

Synopsis

First published in Argentina in 1994, this ingenious novel is a detective story in which the police try to solve an assassination and a lost man tries to reconstruct his identity. These two searches are set against the story of four generations of a Jewish family, a social and cultural narrative that spans nearly a hundred years of cataclysmic events of the century including World War I, the Russian and Cuban revolutions, the birth of the state of Israel, and the military dictatorship in Argentina.

Identity--personal, cultural, historical--is the main theme of this novel, as is the experience of being "other." Rejection is represented in many forms, including that of being a Jew surrounded by anti-Semitic gentiles and that of being a progressive Jew among the Orthodox. As the characters find ways to eliminate discrimination, it becomes clear there is no unblended race or religion, and that to be a mestizo, a person of mixed culture and blood, is to reject the concept of purity and homogeneity.

About this title

About the Author:

Ricardo Feierstein is a well-known writer in Argentina who came of age during the military dictatorship, 1973-89.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Spanish

About this edition

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0826321151
• ISBN 13: 9780826321152
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 351