Literary Hub » Ilan Stavans

How to Build a Dictionary: On the Hard Art of Popular Lexicography

How to Build a Dictionary: On the Hard Art of Popular Lexicography

Ilan Stavans and Peter Gilliver Discuss the Philosophical and Pragmatic Aspects of the Oxford English Dictionary

By Ilan Stavans | September 29, 2025

Poet, Mystic, Warrior, Visionary: Reimagining the Life and Art of an Aztec Ruler Lost in Myth

Poet, Mystic, Warrior, Visionary: Reimagining the Life and Art of an Aztec Ruler Lost in Myth

Ilan Stavans Resurrects Nezahualcóyotl from Fragments of Fact and Fiction

By Ilan Stavans | March 27, 2025

American Literature is a History of the Nation’s Libraries

American Literature is a History of the Nation’s Libraries

Ilan Stavans on One of Democracy’s Bedrock Institutions

By Ilan Stavans | February 16, 2022

What Makes Jewish Literature “Jewish”?

What Makes Jewish Literature “Jewish”?

Ilan Stavans on Belonging, Bookishness, and Memory

By Ilan Stavans | July 9, 2021

Mapping the World of Jewish Latin American Literature

Mapping the World of Jewish Latin American Literature

From Lispector to Jodorowsky, a Literature of Resistance and Dreams

By Ilan Stavans | February 28, 2018

Latin America’s Answer to Karl Ove Knausgaard

Latin America’s Answer to Karl Ove Knausgaard

On Ricardo Piglia and His Alter Ego, Emilio Renzi

By Ilan Stavans | November 14, 2017

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Books of the Week

How Borges Taught Me to Embrace My Jewish Heritage

By Ilan Stavans | September 2, 2016

Brief History of a Terror Attack: The Day That Changed Argentina

By Ilan Stavans | July 18, 2016

Hamlet, Translated into Spanglish

By Ilan Stavans | April 25, 2016

<em>Don Quixote</em>: Sloppy, Inconsistent, Baffling, Perfect

Don Quixote: Sloppy, Inconsistent, Baffling, Perfect

On the Magical Hyper-realism of a 400-Year-Old Classic

By Ilan Stavans | October 7, 2015