Martín and Marvin: A Chicago Jewish Mexican, His Friend and Their Latin Worlds

By Marc Zimmerman

Product Description Martín and Marvin centers on Martín Klein, a Chicago-based Jewish Mexican, his friendships and love affairs, his family and artistic obsessions, his travels and misadventures. But the book is especially about Martín’s relationship with Marvin, a Jewish-American Latin Americanist—their points in common, their differences and their ties with the Latin worlds they encounter. The book opens with a novella-sized text tracing incidents relating to Marvin’s life and death. Two comic stories follow Martín, Marvin and Marvin’s wife on travels in Guatemala and Italy. Then come three dream stories haunted by Martín’s personality and preoccupations, as well as Marvin’s obsession with his lost friend. From the Author This is the first in a sequence of memoir-fiction volumes which I hope to publish in the next few years.  Martin and Marvin covers a period from 1985 to 2015 in the life of a friendship, and asks if friendship is possible in contemporary life.  And (a corollary) how can you maintain a friendship with some one you can't fully approve and who almost drives you (and your wife) practially crazy.  It's a Chicago Latino and Jewish story taking place in many a place. About the Author Marc Zimmerman is Professor Emeritus of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC) as well as Hispanic Studies and World Cultures and Literatures in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of Houston, where he served as chair from 2002-2008. Over the years he taught at the Universidad Autónoma de Nicaragua, McGill University, the University of Michigan, and the Universidad de Puerto Rico; he also taught mini-seminars at la Universidad de los Andes, Tucuman, Argentina and la Universidad de Madrid. He has served as the founding director of Global CASA and LACASA Books since 1998.