The Mangy Parrot: The Life and Times of Periquillo Sarniento, Written by Himself for His Children - Softcover

Jose Joaquin Fernandez De Lizardi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872207358 ISBN 13: 9780872207356

Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2004

Synopsis

Repeatedly imprisoned for his printed attacks on the Spanish administration, Mexican journalist and publisher José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi attempted, in 1816, to make an end-run around government censors by disguising his invective as serial fiction. Lizardi's experiment in subterfuge quickly failed: Spanish officials shut down publication of the novel--the first to be published in Latin America--after the third installment, and within four years Lizardi was back in jail. The whole of The Mangy Parrot (El Periquillo Sarniento) went unpublished until after Lizardi's death--and a decade after Mexico had won its independence from Spain.

Though never before published in its entirety in English, The Mangy Parrot has become a Mexican classic beloved by generations of Latin American readers. Now, in vibrant American idiom, translator David Frye captures the exuberance of Lizardi's tale-telling as the author follows his narrator and alter ego, Periquillo Sarniento, through a series of misadventures that exposes the ignorance and corruption plaguing Mexican society on the eve of the wars for independence. Raw descriptions of colonial street life, candid portraits of race and ethnicity, and barely camouflaged attacks on colonial authority fill this comic masterpiece of world literature--the Don Quixote of Latin America.

About this title

About the Author:

David Frye is Program Associate in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and adjunct professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan. He is the translator of, among other works, Distant Palaces by Abilio Estévez (Arcade, 2004) and the author of Indians Into Mexicans: History and Identity in a Mexican Town (University of Texas, 1996).

Nancy Vogeley is Professor Emerita of Modern Languages, University of San Francisco. She is the author of Lizardi and the Birth of the Novel in Spanish America (University Press of Florida, 2001) and editor of Un manuscrito inédito de poesías de José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and University of California, Berkeley, 2003).

Review:

Finally, an engaging, full-fledged rendition of the first Latin American novel ever--and still one of the savviest. José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi invented Mexico . . . and David Frye shows us how.--Ilan Stavans

This new rendering into English . . . is the only complete English translation. Frye performs a delicate balancing act by fashioning language that is fresh and engaging while preserving historical flavor. The result is outstanding. Summing up: Highly recommended.--M. S. Arrington, Jr., CHOICE

With David Frye's exquisitely clear and elegant translation, the English-speaking world now can fully enjoy El Periquillo Sarniento, the 19th-century novel that rendered the swirling and messy city of Mexico into a comic work of art.--Richard Rodriguez, author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America (Viking, 2002)

About this edition

• Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0872207358
• ISBN 13: 9780872207356
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 592