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Don Quixote's Delusions

Miranda France

A humorous and affectionate look at modern Spain, and a celebration of the country's greatest book, from the pen of a brilliant young writer.

When in 1987 Miranda France spent a year living in Madrid, the post-dictatorship ebullience was at its height. Pornography and soft drugs were legalised alongside more basic freedoms, such as divorce, party-affiliation and kissing in the street. In 1998 she returned to make a journey through the great cities and towns of central Spain - Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Salamanca and others. With the new prosperity, much has changed.

But much has also endured, as she learns from the people she meets, who include a private detective, a shepherd, various nuns, two belly dancers and a Castilian separatist. She also discovers that Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE' published in 1605 and the most translated book after the Bible - is a work of genius which still helps to explain the Spanish character: today's Spaniards still suffer from Don Quixote's delusions, and are as stubborn, inflexible and unrealistic as they have always been.

  • Classification : Travel & Travel Writing
  • Pub Date : JAN 1, 2007
  • Imprint : Orion
  • Page Extent : 256
  • Binding : PB
  • ISBN : 9780753813843
  • Price : INR 699
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Miranda France

Miranda France is a writer, translator, editor and critic. Her translations from Spanish include novels by Claudia PiƱeiro, Alberto Manguel, Liliana Heker and Sergio Olguin. She is a consultant editor for the Times Literary Supplement and a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund. She lives in London.

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