Things with a History: Transcultural Materialism and the Literatures of Extraction in Contemporary Latin America by Héctor Hoyos (review)

Spain or the Knights, legendary commanders like Aruch and Haydreddin “Barbarossa” “would most likely have remained anonymous local pot makers and traders” (202). This is obviously a woefully incomplete inventory of this book’s merits and applications. In slightly over two hundred pages, Hutchinson gives voice to the major and minor players of the region, recapturing in depth their complex identities, life stories, and inspired fictions. Though I partially disagree with his reading of Cervantes’s Gran sultana, this is due more to personal taste than a critical failing. All in all, this masterful, groundbreaking study is bound to become a classic, rather than just required reading for any student, specialist, or aficionado of the bounteous histories and fertile tales of the Mediterranean world.