This collection presents a series of autobiographical meditations by Ilan Stavans on how language defines every aspect of our life.

Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American, and Latino Culture at Amherst College.
Galasso Regina :

Regina Galasso is an associate professor in the Spanish and Portuguese Studies Program and the director of the Translation Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

"Polylingual polymath, Ilan Stavans pirouettes between penetrating insights into the crisscrossing of languages and his own neologistic restless play. Nobody does and thinks language with such depth, verve, and elegance. From Cervantes to Borges, Petrarch to Lahiri, the Talmud to Memes, Stavans forever shifts our understanding of language, not as a prison house of absolutes, but as the sine qua non of our liberatory imagination."

Alicia Borinsky, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, Boston University, and author of One-Way Tickets:

"Ilan Stavans embodies as an intellectual the subject of this original multifaceted volume. A true delight full of turns and surprises aptly edited and introduced by Regina Galasso."