February 10, 2008
Ilan Stavans is a busy man
Ilan Stavans, the author of “On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language” and the editor of “The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature” and “The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories,” spoke with the New York Times last week. Here's what he said when asked what he's working on:
I’m working on a number of projects:
* My book “César Chávez: An Organizer’s Tale” (Penguin), made of the labor organizer’s speeches, will be out in April. It will appear almost at the same time with a bilingual edition I finished a few months ago called “César Vallejo: Take This Chalice from Me and Other Poems” (also Penguin), translated by Margaret Sayers Peden.
* Also in April, Palgrave will release a volume of interviews Verónica Albin did with me: “Knowledge and Censorship.”
* In May, Softskull will bring out my graphic novel “Mr. Spic Goes to Washington,” with illustrations by Roberto Weil. The book takes a satirical look at ethnic politics in the current presidential campaign, focusing on a Latino gang member who becomes a mayor of Los Angeles and then travels to the nation’s capital as a senator, only to be assassinated in the Senate floor (by another Latino). It rotates around a couple of truisms: sacrifice is the measure of leadership; and a good Latino politician is a dead Latino politician.
* In September, Nextbook/Schocken will publish my meditation on the unlikely historical journey of the Hebrew language from pre-biblical times to the present. It’s called “Resurrecting Hebrew.” The central, unifying motif of the volume is the life and legacy of Zionist lexicographer Eliezer ben Yehuda, credited for making Hebrew modern.
* Next, the Library of America will bring out “Coming to America: 400 Years of Immigrant Literature,” an 800-page anthology of immigrant literature in the United States.
* After a decade of work, I finally finished editing for W.W. Norton the mammoth manuscript of “The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature.” Made of hundreds of entries, the anthology goes from the colonial period to the present – with a bonus section on folklore and music. No book-related endeavor ever took from me as much energy. It should be out in 2009.
* And I’m almost at the end of an anthology of 20th-century Latin American poetry for Jonathan Galassi at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
* However, most of my attention is going into putting the concluding touches of the first volume of a biography I’m doing of Gabriel García Márquez.
Doesn't sound like he's going on vacation or retiring any time soon.