Bandido: The Death and Resurrection of Oscar ""Zeta"" Acosta (Latino Voices) - Softcover

Ilan Stavans

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0810120283 ISBN 13: 9780810120280

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2003

Synopsis

The Hispanic Malcolm X. Writer. Activist. Civil rights attorney. Obese, darkskinned, and angry. Man with a surplus of personality. Man of vision. All the above describe Oscar ""Zeta"" Acosta. El Paso-born, Acosta became a leading figure in the Chicano rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, winning landmark decisions in civil rights cases as an attorney. As a tireless writer and activist, he had profound influence on his contemporaries. He seemed to be everywhere at once, knowing everyone in ""el movimiento"" and involving himself in many of its key moments. Tumultuous and prone to excess, he is the Samoan in Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In 1974, after a last phone call to his son, Acosta disappeared in the Mexican state of Mazatlan. Hailed as ""a fine, learned homage"" (Kirkus), ""a kaleidoscopic portrait"" (Booklist), and ""a game of mirrors"" (The Washington Post), Bandido is a veritable tour de force. Through interviews and Acosta's writings (published and unpublished), Ilan Stavans reconstructs - even reinvents - the man behind the myth. Part biographical appraisal, part reflection on the legacy of the Civil Rights era, Bandido is an opportunity to understand the challenges and pitfalls Latinos face in finding a place of their own in America.

About this title

Review:

"The true heir of Octavio Paz in our age."

"One of the most influential figures in Latino literature in the United States."

"A virtuoso critic with an exuberant, encyclopedic, restless mind."

"In the multicultural rainbow that is contemporary America, no one may be more representative of the state of the union than Ilan Stavans."

About the Author:

Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include the best-selling The Hispanic Condition (1995) and On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (2001). In 2000 Routledge published The Essential Ilan Stavans. His work has been translated into half a dozen languages.

About this edition

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0810120283
• ISBN 13: 9780810120280
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160