Named a Latinidad List Best Book of 2012

One of Queerty‘s 5 Must-Reads for Fall

“Mr. Manrique structures his book around a literary mystery . . . Above all, though, Cervantes Street is exciting to read . . . Under Mr. Manrique’s pen, the world of Renaissance Spain and the Mediterranean is made vivid, its surface crackling with sudden violence and cruelty but marked too by unexpected kindness and respites . . . This novel can be read as a generous salute across the centuries from one writer to another, as a sympathetic homage and recommendation . . . Cervantes Street brings to life the real world behind the fantastic exploits of the knight of La Mancha. The comic mishaps are funnier for being based on fact. The romantic adventures are more affecting. Cervantes Street has sent me back to Don Quixote.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Manrique adopts a florid, epic style for his tale of 16th-century Spain, one with the quality of a tall tale told by a troubadour rather than written on the page. He ably captures the human qualities of the legendary writer, as well as his swashbuckling.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Manrique has penned a well-written, well-researched, fast-paced narrative . . . An entertaining book . . . and a superb retelling of Cervantes’s life.”
—Library Journal

“Author Jaime Manrique credibly fills in the unknowns in this passionate and evocative novel . . . Cervantes Street is historical fiction at its best. Compact and intense, it is consistent with all that we know of Cervantes’ life yet rich in invention. The characters are wonderfully drawn, the environments are detailed and colorful and the feeling is genuine . . . Cervantes Street is a gripping, adventuresome novel with profound insight into the ways in which we choose our destiny.”
—New York Journal of Books

“Manrique’s own strokes of literary genius are highlighted . . . An inventive novel fortified with humor, history and graceful writing, Cervantes Street is a mesmerizing literary achievement.”
—El Paso Times

“Manrique’s work provides diverting fun for those familiar with the greatest work of Spanish literature and its many digressions.”
—Historical Novels Review

“Readers the of engrossing Captain Alatriste novels might think they know what to expect from Jaime Manrique’s absorbing novel, Cervantes Street . . . Hold onto your hats because Manrique has crafted a brilliant pastiche of a Spanish picaresque romance infected by a tip of the inkhorn’s quill to northern Europe’s euphuistic tradition and a historian’s purview. Cervantes Street has a subtle academic subtext, a professor’s illustrated lecture in rhetorical history and progenitors of the modern novel . . . Jaime Manrique’s diverting, fun, swift odyssey into Cervantes’ travels that inform his famous work, puts tall tales where they belong, in capable fiction . . . Readers unprepared for belly laughs are advised not to enjoy a tasty beverage while reading this . . . Readers unprepared for a good time will find double reward if they’re lucky enough to stumble upon Jaime Manrique’s Cervantes Street. Readers who seek out Akashic Books’ reliably entertaining releases will marvel that the publisher and author have a winner. If your indie bookseller stocks it, Cervantes Street should be in your hands.”
—La Bloga

“Jaime Manrique’s Cervantes Street is a picturesque imagining of the great Spanish master’s epic life . . . Manrique embellishes a swashbuckling biography to offer a captivating vision of Late Renaissance Spain . . . By turns historical and inventive, Manrique expertly depicts a bygone era in ways that resonate with contemporary life.”
—Lambda Literary

“The life and times of Miguel de Cervantes come to life in the transitions of Jaime Manrique’s novel, Cervantes Street . . . a robust and magnetic story.”
—Propeller Magazine

“The novel is exciting, paced well, interesting and with a literary mystery to boot.”
—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“A sprawling vivacious big-hearted novel. Manrique is fantastically talented and this is perhaps his masterpiece.”
—Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“Cervantes like we’ve never known him: the rogue, the lover, the soldier, the slave, and above all, the poet. In this novel, Jaime Manrique reminds us that the great writer was a man of flesh and blood whose eventful life seemed destined for great literature.”
—Esmeralda Santiago, author of Conquistadora

“Jaime Manrique has written an exceptional historical novel, recreating with imagination and detailed accuracy the world of Late Renaissance in Spain. Manrique’s rendering of the life of Cervantes is brilliant, and his solution to the mystery of who wrote the false Quixote is fascinating, and very persuasive.”
—Edith Grossman, translator of Miguel de Cervantes and Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“A delicious novel in which Don Miguel de Cervantes is forever persecuted by the envious Avellaneda, his mimetic double and spiteful rival in matters of love as well as letters. A fascinating tale of compulsive antagonism, in the vein of Feraud/D’Hubert from The Duellists, or Salieri/Mozart in Amadeus.”
—Laura Restrepo, author of Delirium