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- The Man Who Invented Fiction
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Description
In the early seventeenth century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a book. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from reading too many books of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That book, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history. Cervantes did more than just publish a bestseller, though. He invented a way of writing. This book is about how Cervantes came to create what we now call fiction, and how fiction changed the world.
The Man Who Invented Fiction explores Cervantes's life and the world he lived in, showing how his influences converged in his work, and how his work--especially Don Quixote--radically changed the nature of literature and created a new way of viewing the world. Finally, it explains how that worldview went on to infiltrate art, politics, and science, and how the world today would be unimaginable without it.
William Egginton has brought thrilling new meaning to an immortal novel.
Product details
| Published | Feb 02 2016 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 272 |
| ISBN | 9781620401767 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Illustrations | B&W images throughout |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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Egginton's well-informed history of 16th-century Spanish life, politics, and culture makes for an engrossing read
Kirkus
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Egginton shines in his literary analysis, teasing out Cervantes's genius in accessible prose and showing how Don Quixote paved the way for modern fiction by exploring its characters' inner lives…an entertaining and thought-provoking reading of Cervantes's masterpiece
Publisher's Weekly
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A revered classic here becomes strikingly new again. This belongs in public libraries where literary criticism and biography find eager readers
Booklist
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We need books like this: not-purely-academic studies that could reinvigorate contemporary fiction-the idea of what contemporary fiction is or could be-by intervening in the past
Flavorwire
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Insightful … Illuminating and engaging … Neatly poised between rigorous analysis and breezy accessibility
Standpoint
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Here is a smart, thoughtful book that lucidly expounds a big idea
Sam Leith, Spectator























