"It was the Exemplary Novels, published three years before his death ... that established Cervantes' literary reputation among the intellectuals of his time. These picaresque stories ring with racy idiom and peasant humor, and with explicit characterizations that show how well he knew the speech and folkways and psychology of the common people. Among the Exemplary Novels presented here are three of his most famous ones: The Deceitful Marriage, a cynical tale of Spanish domestic life, merciless in its realism, pungent in its humor; The Little Gypsy, a love story of a high-spirited girl whose haunting counterpart has reappeared in the works of Goethe and Victor Hugo; and The Dogs' Colloquy, judged by many critics to be the greatest short story ever written."--Page 4 of cover.

Theory of Mind is what enables us to "put ourselves in another's shoes." It is mindreading, empathy, creative imagination of another's perspective: in short, it is simultaneously a highly sophisticated ability and a very basic necessity for human communication. Theory of Mind is central to such commercial endeavors as market research and product development, but it is also just as important in maintaining human relations over a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, it is a critical tool in reading and understanding literature, which abounds with characters, situations, and "other people's shoes." Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly apparent that reading literature also hones these critical mindreading skills. Theory of Mind and Literature is a collection of nineteen essays by prominent scholars (linguists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers) working in the cutting-edge field of cognitive literary studies, which explores how we use Theory of Mind in reading and understanding literature.

Within the context of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and his influence on Jorge Luis Borges, Manuel Puig and Gabriel Marquez, Paul Kong brings a variety of theoretical perspectives to bear as he analyzes the concepts of the archive and the manuscript. Setting the stage with an exploration of the intricate and intriguing relationship between the archive and the manuscript, Kong questions the apparently natural association between the two. In the light of Kong's historically contextualized and patient exegesis, the ideological nature of the archive, evident in its charge to serve as a totalizing habitat, stands in contrast with the manuscript that resists attempts to contain it. The playful responses of Borges, Puig and Marquez as they mine the "archive" of Cervantes' works support the anti-colonial dimension of Latin American literature and further problematize the relationship between archive and manuscript. The book concludes with a discussion of the future of archival discourse, especially in the setting of the virtual reality of the Internet and of globalization. Carefully grounded by Kong's close readings and supported by a wealth of astute references and allusions to writers as diverse as Virgil, Wordsworth, and Dickens, The Raiders and Writers of Cervantes' Archive is sure to provoke and intrigue Latin American scholars, narrative theorists, archivists, and those interested in issues related to cultural domination, ideology, and cyberspace.