“Gerassi-Navarro dares to look at an important blindspot in the construction of modern nations: our cultural and political connections to piracy.”—Doris Sommer, editor of The Places of History: Regionalism Revisited in Latin America
“Marvelously readable and engaging, this is first-rate, original scholarship with an unusual perspective on 19th century Hispanic American society, a perspective made utterly convincing, fascinating, and important.”—Mary G. Berg, Harvard University
“Pirate Novels is a well-written and well-documented approach to a corpus of historical fictions which have not previously been the focus of sustained critical attention. Nina Gerassi-Navarro’s contribution to studies of the nineteenth-century historical novel will undoubtedly be of tremendous use to scholars in this field.”
-- Kimberle S. López Colonial Latin American Historical Review
“Pirate Novels undoubtedly opens up a new field of research, sheds light onto a problem, and onto a parcel of the Spanish American literary corpus quite left in the dark. This book will turn out to be a seminal text from which a distinctive body of scholarship may grow.”
-- Juan Pablo Dabove Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies
“Gerassi-Navarro has uncovered some overlooked or unappreciated nineteenth-century melodramatic historical novels focusing on pirates. And she’s provided an imaginative and intriguing interpretation suggesting that these too should be given serious consideration as influential tools deliberately intended by their authors to help build cultural and political nationalism in their respective states. . . . Persuasive. . . .”
-- Charles W. Macune Jr. Hispanic American Historical Review
"In the wake of a recent proliferation of books about pirates swarming the literary marketplace comes a refreshingly new approach to the subject. . . . Pirate Novels is both scholarly and engaging, with extensive documentation and a useful bibliography. The affordable paperback edition could serve as a topical college text in literature, history, or political science."
-- Peter R. Galvin Colonial Latin American Review