El Iluminado: A Mystery of Santa Fe with Ilan Stavans

Sunday, April 19, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. at the Yiddish Book Center

In his entertaining, thought-provoking detective graphic novel set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a fictional Ilan Stavans seeks to solve a murder and locate a lost manuscript by a prominent 16th-century Crypto-Jew burned at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition. The graphic novel, El Iluminado, tells the story of a secret history of religion in the Americas, showing how thousands of European refugees have left a trail of ghostly footprints—and troves of mysteries—across the American Southwest. Author and cultural critic Ilan Stavans will talk about the book and the newly released paperback edition, which includes a new afterword recounting the amazing events that occurred after the original publication, including the real-life discovery of the long-lost memoir of Luis de Carvajal and its restoration to Mexico.

Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, the cofounder and publisher of Restless Books, and the academic director of the Great Books Summer Program. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, his work, translated into twenty languages, has been adapted into film, theater, television, and radio.