Jerry and Rodrigo Go to War

A sharp yet honest caricature of the neocolonial, uncritical right on American college campuses.

Rodrigo Suarez’s Coyote Road is a veritable smash hit. Anyone who’s anyone is reading it, and the accolades and speaking invitations are pouring in. There is just one problem: Rodrigo didn’t write it. Jerry Turley did. And no one believes him.

Thus, Jerry—an unimpressive professor at an Appalachian university—embarks on an obsessive, self-destructive crusade to prove his authorship and expose Rodrigo as a thief and an impostor. It doesn’t take much Googling to discover that “Rodrigo” is not the man he claims to be. Convincing people to care about it proves much harder.

In this uncomfortable campus farce, Steven Salaita holds a mirror to the nagging questions of authenticity and appropriation that occupy academia and literary institutions alike, daring to ask us who really stands to benefit from our era of sensitivity and self-regard.

Steven Salaita is a scholar and writer based in Egypt. He is the author of nine nonfiction books, most notably Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine, Israel's Dead Soul, and the recently published memoir, An Honest Living. His previous work of fiction is Daughter, Son, Assassin. Salaita currently teaches at the American University in Cairo. His essays can be found at stevesalaita.com.