Lazarillo de Tormes and The Grifter (El Buscon): Two Novels of the Low Life in Golden Age Spain - Hardcover

"A delightful new version of two of the best picaresque novels ever written. Rising admirably to the challenges posed by these texts, Frye uses modern American idioms to bridge the gap between Golden Age Spain and our times; the resulting translations are lively and readable. He manages to capture, in modern English, all of the humor of The Grifter's many puns and wordplays while retaining a feel for the original flavor of the work... He should also be congratulated for his fine rendering of verses into English. [Frye's] comprehensive Introduction takes up the culture of Castile in the sixteenth century; his illuminating analysis of Lazarillo de Tormes and The Grifter (El Buscon) will be of great use to those approaching these funny, poignant, and fascinating tales for the first time." --Frederick A. de Armas, University of Chicago

"An elegant, precise, and accessible modern-English rendering of the two best examples of the early modern picaresque genre: the paradigmatic Lazarillo de Tormes and Quevedo's mordant El Buscon . Frye's translations are triumphant, capturing the cadence of popular early modern speech while remaining faithful to the original texts; his notes illuminate the diverse contexts in which the texts were written. Frye gives careful attention throughout to the historical background that propelled these two parallel but different monuments of Golden Age Spanish literature." --Teofilo Ruiz, UCLA