Ph # (480) 965-3867
Fax# (480) 965-8309
e-mail:brp@asu.edu

Go To Shopping Cart and Online Orderform

Offline Order Form



Manuscript Submission Guidelines

 ISBN: 0-9927534-85-1
182 pp. | paper only | $25.00

drama by Lope de Vega; translation by David Gitlitz

Marriage and politics are the subject matter of The Best Boy in Spain. Isabel of Castile is without a husband, and in fifteenth-century Spain, marriage was an opportunity for alliance, for creating bonds of friendship, for reducing potential enmity, and for linking another's assets with one's own. Isabel's decision is so important politically that she becomes the center of nefarious schemes in which her advisors and her half brother, King Enrique IV, vie to control her destiny while various suitors compete for her hand. Isabel must overcome serious obstacles, including virtual imprisonment and lack of funds, before she triumphs and marries Fernando, The Best Boy in Spain. The play is notable for its use of tableaux, static scenes heavy with political symbolism, which lead the spectator to view the Catholic Monarchs with almost religious awe as the creators of modern Spain and as the saviors who rescued Catholic Iberia from the threats of Islam and Judaism.

David Gitlitz, Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Rhode Island, has worked in the fields of Spanish Golden Age literature, Comedia, and Sephardic Studies for many years. His recent book, Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto Jews, received both the Jewish Book Council's National Jewish Book Award for Sephardic Studies and the Lucy Dawidowicz Prize for History. His verse translations of Spanish 17th-century plays have been recognized as outstanding examples in their genre. Gitlitz's most recent foray has been into Sephardic culinary history. A Drizzle of Honey: The Lives and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews, coauthored with Dr. Linda Davidson, was recently published by St. Martin's Press.