ISBN: 9780460877510    Publisher: Orion Publishing Co Year of publishing: 1996     Format:  Paperback No of Pages: 256        

Best known and loved for DON QUIXOTE,the ground-breaking comic precursor of the modern novel,Cervantes led an extraordinary life every bit as colourful as his works.Born the son of a poor medical practioner,maimed by gunshot as a soldier, held to ransom by Algerian corsairs,and eventually drifting into a literary career,Cervantes could draw upon a range of experience with which to spice up his writings.Written as diversionary pieces to be performed between the main acts of a play,Cervantes's eight interludes included in this anthology are comic gems in their own right.As a genre,'interludes'were generally disliked by the authorities because of their subversive potential,and those by Cervantes are no exception.Crude,rude robust and anarchically refreshing,EIGHT INTERLUDES reveals that even as a playwright Cervantes was ahead of his times.
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