UNH Today

Carmen García de la Rasilla, associate professor of Spanish, and Jorge Abril Sánchez, lecturer in Spanish have teamed up to edit a new collection of essays on Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote,” celebrating the 400th anniversary of the publication of the novel’s second part.

“A Novel Without Boundaries: Sensing Don Quixote 400 Years Later,” published by Juan de la Cuesta, includes articles that examine “Don Quixote” in relation to major literary forms and genres such as novels of chivalry, the Alexandrian epic narrative and the genesis of detective fiction. Other articles explore how the novel has been transformed through different mediums and contexts over the centuries. The collection includes two essays by Rasilla.

The idea and content for the book grew out of an April 2015 UNH symposium that commemorated the 400th anniversary of the second part of Cervantes’ famous novel. A diverse group of experts, some of them internationally known for their work, gathered to discuss and share their research on “Don Quixote.”

“The positive, insightful, innovative and unique approaches to the subject brought by participants certainly proved the need and relevance of the conference, which re-opened the Cervantine text to new avenues of research and interpretation in the 21st century,” says Rasilla, who is pleased to be able to share these works widely now through “A Novel Without Boundaries.” Funding from the UNH Center for the Humanities and Class of ‘54 Enrichment Funds made the conference possible and facilitated the publication of the volume.

Rasilla is the author of “Salvador Dalí’s Literary Self-Portrait: Approaches to a Surrealist Autobiography” (Bucknell UP, 2009), and editor of a volume of essays on the modern Spanish novel, “La novela histórica española contemporánea: Novedades y transformanciones” (Verdelís, 2016). Her other publications include a monograph on twentieth-century Spanish urban history, and articles and book chapters on this subject as well as on comparative literature and Spanish Surrealism.

Abril Sánchez has published several articles on Cervantes, books of chivalry and war, ekphrastic sexuality and prostitution, as well as on demonolatry and demonology. He is also an active reviewer of theatrical performances and has evaluated modern adaptations of “Don Quixote” by Assaf Benchetrit, Olga Sánchez and Jérôme Savary, published in “Comedia Performance.”

“A Novel Without Boundaries: Sensing Don Quixote 400 Years Later” is available at major online retailers.